Deposit return nightmare!!!!

My nightmare started in October 2020. After I moved out, I was given no news about my deposit until the 14th (after following up numerous times). If only that was the extent of the poor service. No.. the deductions they wanted to make amounted to almost R7000! R4000 in maintenance plus R2200 in agency fees. They kept giving me conflicting stories about what the damages were supposed to be. The agency gave one list of items and the landlord gave another list. I got the rental housing tribunal involved and in December the agency was told to get me a quote for the list of agreed upon damages. Fast forward to the 18th January -still the same quote for completely different items that the landlord was claiming. (And the quote was given on the morning of the mediation, after the RHT had requested it the previous week). The agency was once again told to get a quote for the actual items we had agreed upon and given a deadline of the 20th January. It was only then that the correct quote was provided and amounted to R1400! Its incomprehensible that if i had not taken this further i would have been left to pay R2600 extra than what i should have!! Additionally, they tapped a terrible clause into my lease agreement that stated i had to pay a R500 late payment fee every time rent was paid after the second of the month, and they only enforce this when they return your deposit, meaning that if my lease starts in January and i pay on the 3rd February, march etc they will let you do this the entire duration of your lease without notification and only take it off at the end in one big chunk! Thank goodness i had only paid on 'late' one time, which was a monday the 3rd September. I was liable for R500 for this one time, admin fees amounting to R1100 and an inspection fee. In the end there was nothing I could do about the admin fees so I let it go. After RHT mediation, I ended up getting R8000 from an R11800 deposit. Disgusting.