Can a LL contact their tenant if its with an agent

General Discussion

My understanding is or rather what agents have made me understand by their attitude is that I cannot contact my tenant directly and that it has to be through them.  Is this correct?.  If I can contact them directly I may (or may not) be able to get tenant to sign as received if I give certain documents like the how to rent guide.

At the moment the agent is delaying getting it done.  If I contact the tenant directly am I breaking the agency contract?  There is nothing in the contract which says I can or cant.

Can I change the agent? Its 7 years and about time cos they dont seem to have done things correctly and refuse to accept the fact saying they are professionals and have done this for 20 years and have done everything correctly .  Even said if I dont trust them I can take the keys and go but I want to make sure they get things to be compliant before I take it from them.  The deposit is with them and I thinks its in the insurance based scheme in my deposits as they just dont seem to want to retun the deposit for me to give S21.