http://www.techwench.com/how-to-protect-yourself-from-bad-web-developers/

If you’ve been in online business for years, once you might be in a position where you wanted redesign your site on your own only to find that your web developer refused to provide access to the domain. And adding to the pain, the original contract says that the domain name they bought is actually owned by the developer, not you as the owner. Unethical? Of course. Reality? Yes. Preventable? Absolutely. You can avoid the nightmare, hassle and heartache of having to re-market and re-brand your business. You need to make sure that you own your domain name to avoid catastrophic and costly consequences