Applying to Rent: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Deposit

My question involves landlord-tenant law in the State of: New York (Manhattan)

Narrative, facts, and legal questions in brief:

• Me and a roommate indicated interest in an apartment unit. Clearly, before putting down any money, I wanted to get the whole picture of the lease terms.
  
  
  
• The leasing/property management office required a $500 non-refundable 'holding deposit' to take the unit off the market, a $100 application fee and one-month's rent as a security deposit.
  
  
  
• I requested to review an unofficial/voided or draft of the prospective lease (or any relevant literature with more depth on the terms) prior to paying the above.
  
  
  
• My requests to preview the lease were strictly denied. To view the lease text, I had to pay the above (partly non-refundable) sum.
  
  
  
• I diligently inquired on all implicit or explicit costs of occupancy, redundantly. No disclosures were made prior or inscribed in any marketing/application materials regarding a mandate to carpet 80% of floors (a material implicit cost only unveiled after a due nonrefundable payment). Zero. Orally or in any marketing/application text.
  
  
• I took a calculated risk as a reasonable person would do in relying upon the leasing office's prior representations of occupancy costs. I relied that these representations would remain constant after payment of the demanded sum, where only after I had the opportunity to see the text of the lease for the first time and its terms, ex post a demanded payment! It was over 47,000 words long and, having a busy job, I did the best I could to review it thoroughly under the tight time constraint the provided before the holding period expire we signed it.
  
  
• Months later out of nowhere we get a letter that our unit is scheduled for inspection for compliance on an 80% carpeting clause.
  
  
  
• The implicit cost of carpeting the whole place unruly burdens our budget, which is tight and was calculated on the prior representations of occupancy costs.
  

Questions:

Would this pass your sniff test as a material misrepresentation of occupancy costs? Particularly when my request to preview a voided/draft copy was denied; the property mgmt agency first requiring me to shell out an ex ante $5k deposit hold funds JUST to thereafter see a copy of the lease (clearly in a deadlock trap tactic).

Would a court find this aesthetic modification carpeting clause enforceable when it was never disclosed prior to payment of a demanded deposit, while my repeated requests to review the lease prior to payment were denied?

This clause only became legible under a hostage deadlock tactic of "pay to read first" where it was demanded to pay a significant partly nonrefundable deposit before I could view the lease, with any preview before payment strictly denied. Smells quite rotten won't you say?

What laws, precedents or legal dynamics are relevant here and to what extent are any such clauses enforceable granted an applicant was required to pay a non-refundable deposit to see the terms first, with no ex ante disclosure of ex post implicit material required costs of occupancy?

Thanks!

Applying to Rent: Can a Landlord Deny a Preview of a Lease 'Draft' Demanding First an Ex Ante Deposit