Put deposit down and refuse to give it back

We contacted Vaughn to have our pool re-done in September. We put down a deposit of R8800 end of September beginning of October. Unfortunately we had tenants that abandoned us and we had no option but to put the pool on hold. Once we realized we were in a financial crisis, we contacted Vaughn and requested our deposit to be paid back. He never said it was non-refundable. And kept promising we would have our deposit back soon. It has been over 3 months and we have received no money back from Vaughn. He will not take our calls, nor respond to our messages. We sadly have to take the matter further by means of a lawyer. Very sad indeed as this is not how we wanted this to end.