I took over my church site that was started by another, and to my surprise I found out that our domain (have had only 6 months for now) registrar and admin contact is our webhosting co. and I am just a tech contact...

I am thinking of changing webhosting service, for our current webhosting service has a few very bad policies of charging things which were supposed to be free such as setting up a FTP direcoty etc.., and not refunding the money already collected in error but giving only as a credit to our account, etc..

Is there any way that I can claim the domain name transferred to my new site, or should I start with a new domain name when I move?

Any experienced advice would greatly appreciated.

If the hosting company is registered as the owner of the domain I'm not sure how much you can do. Technically as far as the law is concerned they own it. It's shady on their part though.

What you might try doing since there's still six months before it expires is work with them and try to get them to transfer it to you. Maybe let them know you were under the impression you owned the domain and wanted to transfer it to a different registrar where you have other domains registered so you could keep them all together.

I wouldn't say anything about wanting to switch hosting while they own the domain. First try to get the domain under your ownership and then set up a hosting account somewhere else. After you're sure the other account is set up and your files are on the new account and the domain is pointing to the new hosting company then and only then would you cancel the current hosting.

The hard part though is going to be getting ownership of the domain if the hosting company is listed as owning it.

Making any hasty decision and changing the webhost immediately won’t get you your domain name as well as the amount which is to be refunded.
It’s a policy of some of the companies to keep the domain name with them as they can keep hold of the existing customer of that domain.
If that particular domain name is very important for you then try your best to get it transferred or else I would suggest you to change your domain name and the webhosting company as well because it will save you from a lot of head-ache in the future from that company.

Thanks Vangogh and Claud for taking time to give me good advices.

I would like to take this occasion to warn all those new webmasters out there how important it is to own your own domain name. Never sign up with those webhosts who pretend to give you FREE domain name but actually did not give you the ownership but to keep it to themselves so that they could tie you down to them...

There is one thing that sometimes works if you don't own your domain name. I won't promise it will...I can only attest that it has in the past.

Here's what you do.

1) Find the website of your domain registrar (not the host itself, but the company that regged the domain itself).

2) Find a contact fax number (or failing that, a mailing address.)

3) Fax (or mail) a letter on company letterhead explaining the situation and who the correct contact is.

Some domain registrars will update the WHOIS information manually on your behalf. Once you get that, you've gained control.

THIS DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK, HOWEVER. Sometimes the host is the registrar, and some registrars won't do it. It's worth a shot, though.