advice on current live site

I was approached by a friend who is president of an organization. They have a website already live and running. She was telling me how unhappy they were with their current web design company that built the site.

She said they wanted him to work up an admin section so that one of the board members could administer the site and change/update content and articles when needed. She asked if this was something I could do, and I said of course. The site is a WP site. She also expressed aggravation that the site builder kept trying to "sell" them other things. She said they were using a MS Access database, which I of course cautioned her about, and asked why couldn't they migrate to a MySQL db. But I guess they could get by with Access.

So a couple of questions come to mind.

First, is there any thing illegal I could be doing if I were to accept this job. From what I understand, the designer is not under a maintainence contract.

Second, I've never "taken" over a project like this where the site is a WP site and already up, so I would assume the site owners need to give me their WP login info. My friend didn't know it was a WP site, so I'm sure they dont know how to login to the wp-admin page.

I'd need the server login info as well, correct? I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to cover my bases(and butt) just in case. lol Adn any tips and advice on this process of taking over a pre-existing site. Thanks for any help.

If the site is already a WordPress site, why can't they update content themselves?

There is an admin section with WP ... in fact, the admin person can create as
many users as they wish, and control what they can and cannot update.

I don't understand your post ... are you telling me they aren't allowed to use WordPress
and the site is owned by them? Very strange if that's the case.

If the site is already a WordPress site, why can't they update content themselves?

There is an admin section with WP ... in fact, the admin person can create as
many users as they wish, and control what they can and cannot update.

I don't understand your post ... are you telling me they aren't allowed to use WordPress
and the site is owned by them? Very strange if that's the case.

lol Well maybe I dont have enough information. I asked my friend a few days later about the fact that it was a WP site, and she had no idea what I was talking about. Maybe someone else within their organization knows more about it. All I know is she said they asked their web design guy about having a way to admin their own site and she wasn't happy with his response. She also said he was hard to get in touch with, taking weeks to get back with them on questions. But yes I know wp already has the admin section, which is what I meant I could do for them.

Maybe I should talk to her again and find out more about it..lol

Here's the site. I dont want to link it, and will remove it shortly.

Yes, it's wordpress.

Find out these things:
1) Did the site owner register and subscribe to a webhost before they hired the designer.
2) Was there any written agreements they had to sign, and post it here if they did.
(or PM me if it should not be public).
3) Does the site owner have any paperwork on account logins, passwords, or anything
about the webhost and domain host.

Yes, it's wordpress.

Find out these things:
1) Did the site owner register and subscribe to a webhost before they hired the designer.
2) Was there any written agreements they had to sign, and post it here if they did.
(or PM me if it should not be public).
3) Does the site owner have any paperwork on account logins, passwords, or anything
about the webhost and domain host.

Awesome. Thats what I was looking for. Again, I've never worked on a site someone started or is working on currently, so I wanted to make sure of some things. Thanks alot!

Let us know the answers to those questions, and PM me if you can't post it here.

If the site is already a WordPress site, why can't they update content themselves?

It could be that the original developer set up Wordpress for themselves and didn’t tell the client about it, to keep a steady income by continuous requests to update the content? If the developer isn’t cooperative in giving out the admin login info one could back up the database and config file, dump all DB tables and empty the config file, reinstall Wordpress (it should automatically redirect to the install screen if there is no config) with a new admin account, and then reimporting the database except for the users table. That should only be the last resort, though, and you might wanna try this in a local development environment first.

If the developer isn’t cooperative in giving out the admin login info

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the site owner have full rights to all login info, code, text, images, and intellectual properties of their own site? lol I mean if they were to "fire" this guy, he would I assume by law be required to divulge this information regardless.

I'm still waiting on the information laid out in the previous post.