Partner lockout of Microsoft 365 tenant – looking for advice on next steps
Hello all, I’d appreciate some guidance from the community on a serious situation we are facing. On 12 September 2025, our Microsoft partner unilaterally locked us out of our Microsoft 365 tenant. They retained exclusive Global Administrator / Partner Delegated Admin rights, which means: All staff and directors are unable to access email, Teams, SharePoint/OneDrive, or even log into their Azure AD-authenticated workstations. Our corporate and staff personal data is now inaccessible to us as the controller. Access restoration has been explicitly conditioned on payment of a disputed invoice (not related to Microsoft licence pass-through). This raises several concerns: Operational: we are effectively paralysed. Security/IP: the partner still has exclusive access to proprietary source code and other confidential business data. Compliance: we cannot meet our GDPR/UK DPA obligations on availability of personal data while locked out. We contacted Microsoft Business Conduct on Friday evening with full details of the incident, but so far no human response has been received to those emails. Questions for the community From a Microsoft tenancy perspective – what’s the fastest/most effective way to remove a partner’s delegated admin access if they refuse to release it voluntarily? Has anyone experienced or seen a similar scenario where access was conditioned on disputed payments? Are there formal Microsoft Partner Code of Conduct provisions that directly address this type of misuse of delegated admin rights? Any practical lessons on balancing the technical fix (regaining control of the tenant) with the legal approach (injunction, regulatory notifications)? My focus is on regaining secure access, protecting data/IP, and ensuring compliance. Any experience, insight, or links to Microsoft policy/resources would be greatly appreciated.
Remove domain and recover licence.
I have a very small business (sole property) and I recently hired a sales employee. I bought a business basic licence with the firm Combell that hosts my website and basic mailboxes. When activating 365 I was asked to make a tenant and link my domain with that tenant. I now want to go back to the basic mailboxes as It don't need the 365 environment. Combell states that I can't do this when I want to use the same domain..This seems strange to me as I own the domain, not Microsoft. Kind regards Kris
Help on MS365 Business Std license issue
Hi Community - Issue with MS365 Business Standard license I have a ms365 biz standard subscription/license attached to my email (email address removed for privacy reasons) - Australian subscription. I am global admin to the account. It expired on 5/9/26. I bought a new one on 5/9/26 from a office supplies store (Officeworks, a large chain in Australia) I took help of MS telephone support to add the new product key. so far so good. However, it appears that the new subscription's license is not attaching to my id. under my id, Under 'Your Products' - it is showing both the expired subscription; and the new subscription. Under the 'Licenses' - it is showing MS 365 Biz Standard - 'Available licenses - 1' and 'Assigned licenses - 1/2' - if i click on MS 365 Biz Std - it tells me - 'Licenses - 2 purchased' - under Assigned Licenses - 1 ; and under its drop down - 'user's name' - 'Type' -> 'user' / Assigned licenses - blank / email - user's email. Under 'active users' -> my id -> 'licenses and apps' - it is showing MS 365 Biz Std - check - and 1 of 2 licenses available. After much engagement with MS telephone support; I am assured that everything that needs to be done has been done; the expired subscription will simply disappear after a time; and licenses has been properly applied. We did much poking around over Quick Assist - including unassign / assign license. However, the fact that that the account continues to show an expired subscription and active subscription at the same time; and the fact that there seems to be one license still available (there should technically be no extra license available - as old has expired and new one should be in use) is kinda bothering me. This is an id for my business, and I am naturally concerned of any abrupt disruption / data loss etc. Can someone please help to clarify / give suggestions that whether all is well, and i should have a peaceful sleep, as MS tele support suggests; or is there a cause for concern? Kind regards ManishDNS connections
In 2021, I bought a domain and connected it to a Microsoft 365 account at the time. Over the years, I did not renew the domain and the 365 membership. Luckily last month, the domain was still available so I bought it back. Now, I can’t connect it to my new 365 account because it is still connected with the old one. I don’t have the username so I’m stuck at the moment