We used the services of a web design/development company who eventually managed most of our sites. The service was great and was also good value for money (at the time). They suggested that if we had a dedicated server we would save a lot on hosting as we had so many sites. As we didn't know much about the whole server business, we asked them to go ahead and get one. They set everything up and we sent the payment. After a couple of years things changed. They started demanding more money and negotiations fell through. When we asked them for FTP access to the files, yeah, we did get all the files but they were coded.
To cut a long story short, we ended up losing ALL the sites and I had to get everything done in-house, under my supervision to this day.
Once bitten twice shy...
No offence to developers & designers, but guys thanls but no thanks...