Cleanup Lead Owners

Remove departed employees from HubSpot and reassign their CRM records. Orphaned records with no active owner fall through the cracks.

Prerequisites

• HubSpot API token in

  .env

• Python with

  hubspot-api-client

  installed via

  uv

• A list of current employees (to compare against HubSpot users)
• A default owner or round-robin assignment rule for orphaned records

Step-by-Step Instructions

Stage 1: Before — Identify Non-Employee Owners

from hubspot import HubSpot

api_client = HubSpot(access_token=os.getenv("HUBSPOT_API_TOKEN"))

# Get all owners including deactivated
active_owners = api_client.crm.owners.owners_api.get_page(limit=100)
deactivated_owners = api_client.crm.owners.owners_api.get_page(
    limit=100, archived=True
)

Cross-reference with your current employee list. Flag:

• Deactivated HubSpot users who still own records
• Active HubSpot users who are no longer employees
• Contractors or vendors who should not own records

For each flagged owner, count how many contacts, companies, and deals they own.

Stage 2: Execute — Reassign and Deactivate

1. Reassign records owned by non-employees:

   • Use the batch update API to reassign contacts to the appropriate active owner
   • Apply round-robin or territory-based rules if no specific owner is obvious
   • Reassign companies and deals associated with the same contacts

2. Deactivate users who are no longer employees (requires Super Admin in HubSpot Settings > Users & Teams).

3. Run

   /assign-unowned-contacts

   after reassignment to catch any records that ended up without an owner.

Stage 3: After — Verify

1. Search for contacts where

   hubspot_owner_id

   matches any deactivated owner ID — count should be zero.
2. Confirm all reassigned contacts have an active owner.
3. Check that no workflows broke due to owner changes (some workflows may filter by specific owners).

Stage 4: Rollback

• Owner reassignments can be reversed by batch-updating the

  hubspot_owner_id

  back to the original value.
• Keep a log of original owner assignments before making changes.
• Deactivated users can be reactivated in HubSpot Settings if needed.

Tips

• Run this whenever an employee leaves the company — do not wait for quarterly cleanup.
• Set up an offboarding checklist that includes HubSpot record reassignment.
• Pairs with

  /assign-unowned-contacts

  for comprehensive ownership hygiene.