Chapter 3 of the International Residential Code says you're wrong about the balcony. A bedroom has to have at least two points of exit and seeing as there was no window in the bedroom that's what the balcony door was. From our experience of letting with you I'm not surprised you don't know the law or your obligations.

It is not possible to insist that you agree to a deduction otherwise you get nothing back. The process just does not work like that. I would strongly advise you and any of our tenants that you ARE entitled to any undisputed element of your deposit without delay. Anything disputed then requires agreement or independent arbitration. Any agent stating otherwise should be reported and I would encourage anyone to do so.

As for the balcony door issue:

It is not true that this is a fire hazard. This is you being melodramatic! Most flats do not have balconies and a balcony is NOT recognised as a fire escape. No fire escape instructions in any building anywhere say "in the event of fire, open balcony door, say a prayer and leap over the balcony!"? I am being very glib here to emphasise the point!!

How would you escape from a balcony above the 1st floor in a fire? You would be seriously injured or killed if you jumped!

Unfortunately not all repairs have quick fixes and not all fixes are in the hands of the agents and yet the agent is the soft target!

If I remember correctly we had issues with a drop in the frame and this falls into the responsibility of the block managers. You cannot just turn a screw to fix this. You need bespoke frames remanufacturing but the opening was not square. It was a complicated issue.