Utterly Appalled...

The building in which my girlfriend, her daughter & myself resided at was bought over by new owners in April/May of 2018.. The new owners employed a new rental agency (DEM Properties) to manage the building. The leasing agent in charge of our building is a woman by the name of Robyn Bruce. Robyn arrived at our flat on Saturday the 19th of May 2018 with contractors, informing us that they were there to install & connect both an electricity meter as well as a water meter. This, without giving us any notice in writing & without first renewing our lease which had expired at the end of December 2017 & was never renewed & thus, had reverted to a month-to-month basis.. We refused to allow them to install meters as we had a verbal agreement with the previous leasing agency (Wakefields) in which our rental was inclusive of lights & water.. The reason we had a verbal agreement instead of a written agreement is due to there being an error in our lease agreement in which it stated there were already water & electricity meters, which there were not, so I brought this to the attention of Wakefields & was told to take our rent as inclusive of water & lights until the issue had been resolved & a new contract draughted.. That was the last we heard on the subject for well over a year until the new owners bought over the building & contracted DEM Properties as the leasing agents.. We told Robyn Bruce before the contractors installed the meters that it was ******** to make such changes to our rent without prior agreement from BOTH parties & without giving us notice of at least two months IN WRITING so as to make the necessary arrangements to adjust our budgets accordingly!! Her response was that she's never heard of a landlord renting a house/flat out as INCLUSIVE of water or lights, so we shouldn't complain, to which we responded by informing her duly of our intention to deduct the cost of water & lights from the monthly rental in lieu of their unfair & ********* business practice!! We then began to receive harassing letters every month from lawyers, threatening to take us to court, etc.. I eventually contacted the lawyers & informed them of the situation, following which, the harassment ceased!!! On the 31st of December 2018 we moved to a new residence, after having given our notice.. We STILL, to date, have not yet been paid back our Breakage Deposit of R5250 or our Utilities Deposit of R1200 nor have we been paid the interest accrued on both sums over a two year period, instead, we received an Email on Friday the 25th of January 2019, informing us that the total amount deducted from our breakage deposit for the cost of water & lights is equal to R5200 & as such, DEM Properties will only pay us R1250!!! I'm FURIOUS to say the least!!! I've never had the misfortune ****il now) of dealing with such total & utter incompetence & thievery!!!