Can an admin change the owner of a Facebook page?

Looking to regain control of your Facebook business page?

Have you sold the business and need to transfer the management & ownership of the page to a new owner?

Did you make a business page for a friend and are now looking to hand over the reins?

If your answer is “yes“, or if there are similar circumstances, this article will help you make the transition.

When this article will not help:

You’ve lost your password to the Facebook profile in control of the business page.

If you need help recovering your password, here’s a great resource for you.

Ready to get started?

Let’s get your valuable marketing tool back in YOUR control! You likely already know the value of marketing your business on Facebook so don’t hesitate to make this transition. The longer you wait, the more leads you miss out on!

Up first in this guide, we will show you the steps that need to take place to transfer the ownership. Afterward, this article will provide an email template for you to utilize in contacting and instructing the other party on how they need to complete the ownership transfer process.

IMPORTANT

Terms To Know

To simplify this article, we are going to be using the following terms.

Checklist

You will need all of the following in order to complete the Facebook business page ownership transition:

• Willing Holder: The holder will need to be willing to help you in your goal to attain ownership. If they are not, you are going to be fighting an uphill battle with Facebook support and there is a legitimate chance they will not grant you ownership if you don’t have a business license in your name and full proof of business ownership.
  If you foresee an issue with the holder not cooperating, scroll down toward the end of the article where we give you some optional measures.
• Claimer Profile: Every Facebook Business Page needs to be tied directly to a regular Facebook Profile. In most cases, this will be your personal profile. If you are a manager for a company we STRONGLY suggest that the owner of the company be the profile linked to the page as doing such will minimize the need to complete this change in the future. The admin can then select page managers so others may help manage the page.

  You will need the primary email address on file for this individual’s Facebook profile.

• Claimer ‘likes’ page: The claimer needs to like the Facebook business page in question in order for the holder to select them as an admin.

Step-By-Step Guide

DISCLAIMER: You may not hold IdeaSwell LLC responsible in the event something goes wrong and the page or ownership is lost or otherwise in a worse situation than when you started. We have based this guide on the information we were able to find and test. Use this guide at your own risk. We have however tested this technique and used it to help clients in the past. As of August 2021 this is a viable option. However, Facebook loves to change things.

Step 1.

From the business pages settings area, select ‘page roles’.

Input the claimer’s email address.

Select ‘admin‘ on the dropdown of user role options.

*In the event the ‘add’ button is not working: The individual receiving the admin role / attaining ownership needs to visit the business page and ‘like’ the page.  Once complete the button will work.

Step 2.

Within your notifications area you should see an invitation to become an admin of the page.

Hit Accept

Step 3.

*First, double-check that the Facebook profile of the proper Claimer is listed as an admin. If so, proceed:

From the same area in the Facebook Page’s settings area (page roles), under “Existing Page Roles”, you should now see at least two admins.

Hit the ‘edit’ option near your name/business manager name.

*If there are more than two admins, we suggest removing all that are not the claimer.

Step 4.

Hit the ‘remove’ option.

This will prompt a confirmation window. Be sure to read and understand the information about scheduled posts and if this is not of concern, hit ‘confirm’.

That wraps up the step-by-step guide on how to change the ownership/admin of a Facebook business page.

Requesting Facebook Page Transfer

Requesting the current admin/owner to transfer your Business’s Facebook Business page may seem like a fairly straightforward endeavor. Often times it is, however, we have seen everything from social media management companies not knowing how to transfer rights to disgruntled ex-employees un-willing to assist and everything in between. To help our clients we drafted an email template to help in these situations and are now sharing it with you.

If you end up using it, all we request is that you give our Facebook page a ‘like’. Thanks!

Pre-Email Sending Checklist

You will need all of the following in order to complete the Facebook business page ownership transition:

Email Intention

This email has a few primary indicators for the recipient.

For one, it alerts them to your knowledge of the ownership transfer process. They will now know they cannot try and say such a thing isn’t possible, or is so complicated they should be compensated for their efforts.

Secondly, the reception of this email to a marketing company alerts them to your demeanor of the situation. They will read the somewhat legal terminology and may be much more willing to cooperate now to avoid future potential legal involvement.

This is [YOUR NAME] with [BUSINESS NAME] and we would like to formally request you transfer the ownership of our Facebook business page  (YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE URL) to us directly. Your company created the page over [INSERT NUMBER] years/months ago and although we appreciate your services, we would like to manage it ourselves.   Specifically, myself, as I am an owner of the company.   

As we have fulfilled our financial obligations to your company we believe this is to be a very reasonable request.   

Please follow these instructions to complete the transfer: 

1.  Make myself [YOUR NAME] (*INSERT LINK DIRECT TO YOUR PERSONAL FB PROFILE HERE*) an admin of the page  (YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE URL)

2.  Send me an email to inform me you have done so. 

3.  Await my confirmation of the new page role. 

4.  Remove yourself as an admin, unlike and unfollow the page.  

*Please also confirm the reception of this email as soon as possible.  

If you need to confirm my identity please feel free to contact me through the page in question or via our website, [INSERT YOUR WEBSITES CONTACT PAGE URL HERE]

We greatly appreciate your assistance in facilitating this transfer. We look forward to engaging with our community on Facebook as soon as possible.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me at [INSERT A CONTACT NUMBER]

Sincerely,

[YOUR NAME]

*The template provided here assumes you are contacting some form of a marketing company that set up your page for you. This is the most common situation we see when working with clients.

**[YOUR NAME] should match the actual name of the Facebook profile you need the ownership of the Facebook page transferred to. This will make for a smoother transition with the other party.

Be sure to indeed confirm that they have made you an “admin” and not simply a “manager”.  Step 4 is the only way to complete the transfer and it does have to be done on their end as they are the page creator.

Drastic Measures

In the event all of the above measures yield no response from the current owner, here are a few further measures you may try to attain rightful ownership of your Facebook Business Page.