I paid someone to take digital photos and do a web set up for a vacation home rental I have. He is in the property management business and managed our vacation home for a while. The photos he took were put on HIS website where he set up a page for our home. After a few months, we decided to go off on our own and set up our own website. Originally I used the digital photos of MY home that he had taken and put them on my new website, but he then started threatening to charge me $250. per picture per month if I didn't take them down. To avoid any problems and because he still owes me money from previous renters, I took the pictures down and put up new ones that I took.

In the contract we signed it says:

"Set-up Fee: $500.00 set-up fee covers professional digital photography and website set-up."

No where in his contract does it say that pics are copyright and/or that he retains all rights to them.
Also, he is still using one of the pictures of my home that he took to promote his vacation rentals even though I am no longer doing business with him. Doesn't he have to have permission to use a photo of the interior of my house??

I'd really appreciate anyone who has legal knowledge of this, to give me their thoughts!

Thanks!