The developer who built your website in 2019 set up your Google Business Profile using their own Gmail account. They have since stopped answering email. You cannot change your own opening hours. This is one of the most common problems I get called about, and the route back is documented, slow, and not guaranteed.
Three positions, and only one of them matters when things go wrong
Google gives a Business Profile two access levels plus one special position. "A Business Profile can have multiple owners but only one primary owner" (sourced from Google).
Owner. "Full control over the profile. You can add or remove users, manage profile info, and even delete the profile."
Manager. "Mostly the same access to the profile as owners. The only exception is they can't add or remove users or remove the profile."
Primary owner. An owner carrying one extra constraint. "If you're the primary owner, you can't remove yourself until after you transfer primary ownership to someone else", and "A profile must have at least one other owner or manager to transfer primary owner access to."
Day to day, an owner and a manager do the same work: post, reply to reviews, change hours, upload photos. The difference only ever shows up on the day the relationship ends. Which is exactly why nobody checks it at the start.
What actually happens when you request access
Google documents a specific path. You find your profile, request access, and then (sourced from Google):
"The current profile owner is then notified by email and has 3 days to respond."
If they approve, "You'll get an approval email and can now manage the Business Profile."
If they deny, "You'll get a rejection email but you can still suggest an edit to the profile."
If nothing comes back, "If you don't get a response after 3 days, you may have the option to claim the profile."
Read that last line as carefully as Google wrote it. The word is "may", and Google states elsewhere on the same page that "The option to claim a profile isn't always available." There is no documented route that guarantees you get your profile back. Anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing on your behalf.
A practical note on the three days: send the request from an email address the old owner will recognise, and email them separately to say it is coming. The notification lands in an inbox that may not be checked. A silent request that expires costs you nothing but a week, but it is a week.
The seven-day wait nobody warns you about
Say it works and you are back in. There is one more gate. "When you become a profile owner or manager, you have to wait 7 days before you can manage some profile features" (sourced from Google). During that week you will get an error if you try to delete or undelete the profile, remove other owners or managers, or transfer primary ownership.
This matters in one specific moment: you have just clawed access back from a former agency and you want them off the profile today. You cannot, for a week. Plan for it instead of panicking on day two and assuming something has gone wrong.
How to never have this problem again
The whole fix is one sentence: own the profile yourself and add everyone else as a manager. Concretely:
Create or hold the profile on a business Google account you control. Not a personal address, and not one tied to a staff member who might leave.
Make that account the primary owner, and keep it that way permanently.
Add your agency, developer or marketing hire as a manager.
Keep the recovery phone number and email on that account current, because that is what you will need if you ever lose the password.
Review the user list every six months and remove anyone who has left.
A manager can do all the work. A manager cannot lock you out. That is the entire argument, and there is no legitimate reason for a supplier to refuse it.
What to put in writing before work starts
Three lines in the engagement, and they are not adversarial. Any good supplier will sign them without blinking:
The client holds primary ownership of the Google Business Profile and every other marketing account.
The agency is added as a manager, not an owner.
Access is removed within a set number of business days of the engagement ending, and the client does not have to ask twice.
If a supplier pushes back on any of the three, that is the answer to a question you had not thought to ask yet. It sits alongside knowing what a retainer actually includes, which I have written about in the honest agency pricing guide. Mine are published rather than quoted on a call.
And once you do hold it, it is worth going through everything else on the profile properly, using the checklist, because a profile that has been managed by somebody else for three years usually has a few surprises in it.
The question is not whether your current supplier is trustworthy. It is what happens if they close the business, or you get a better offer. So whose Google account is your profile sitting in right now?