I’ve also been asking myself the same thing - Do they charge everyone they approve? it certainly isn’t ethical.
The lease at this point hasn’t had any processing, all they did was probably take someone’s old lease and change personal details to mine and sent it to me. So I must pay for that...
I am currently in this situation. I applied for a place in Cape Town and they charged me R200 as an application fee. Thereafter, I got approved and they sent me a lease form before I couldn’t view the place. I went to view the place and wasn’t happy with it. I never signed their lease agreement...