Withheld R5000 deposit

I have been struggling to receive my deposit from the letting agents from September 2015. when I queried what the hold up was the answer to me was that the owner has decided to use my entire deposit of R5000 to paint the flat out, my understanding is that the agents deal with rentals and not the owner thats why they are there but instead move the buck to the owner. the date 24/02/2016 i still have had no feed back even after sending the below:<br> 1. The flat was not painted before the previous person moved in.<br> 2. The flat was not painted when the previous person moved out.<br> 3. The flat was not painted when I moved into the flat.<br> 4. You require that my full deposit of R5000 be used to paint the flat when clearly there was no breakages or damages done from the report done by the caretaker of the flats.(He unfortunately died so im unsure if this has a hand in it<br> <br> See below regarding the RENTAL HOUSING ACT<br> A. The Rental Housing Act (RHA) states in Section 5 that the deposit and interest accrued may be used for reasonable cost of repairing damages to the property. The tenant cannot be liable for fair wear and tear, which is referred to as devaluing something through ordinary and reasonable