Call Backs

We are having a problem at work. Our website developer is not returning calls. He started off gung ho years ago and slowly but surely he has become lazy. If he isn't calling us back, is he also not calling back other clients. We finally decided to change web masters and here is where things become a problem. He locked his name and email and telephone numbers in with the web hosting service, so as much as they would like to release our account, they cannot do it until he calls them. He has no idea we will be doing this and our calls to him only say to call us back. For all he knows, we want more designs. It's crazy that we own the site but someone else has the power.