Suggestions on a "notice to dispute" from old apartments
 

hello there! i know there are a lot of experienced folks here so i thought i'd ask a question here.

i recently moved out from a Capreit run apartment building in stevenston. i first moved in march 2013, and moved out march 2014. today i received in the mail a "notice of a dispute resolution hearing" from the residential tenancy branch. they are claiming i did not give a 30 day notice, and they are suing me for the loss of revenue for april, plus the cost of filing this claim (about $1100)

- i filed a 30 day move out notice at the end of february (hand written and dated, dropped off to their office in my building)
- they posted a notice on my door the next day saying "pre-move out inspection on march 3rd, 2014". my girlfriend and i were out that day so we assume they came and checked major damage
- everything seemed good. i moved out on the 23rd of march.
- spent the remaining week of march cleaning and cleaning and cleaning the apartment. i left it in FAR BETTER CONDITION then when i moved in. i washed all the walls, steam cleaned the carpets, painted any knicks on the cup boards and doors etc. the place was absolutely and utterly spotless and 100% MOVE IN READY
- when i called the capreit building guy and asked to schedule the post move out inspection, he had no idea what i was talking about. he did it short notice and did it the next day. he commented on how great the place looked.
- he did mention (verbally) that he saw the written notice, but thought i had changed my mind about moving. im not sure why he thought this.
- we signed all the papers, everything seemed great, and i received my damage deposit and pet deposit back from them, plus the cost of my garage door remote (roughly $1060)

- april 1st comes along, and capreit automatically took out my rent of $1041.67 from my bank account. i went to my bank and had them do a request to return funds from capreit. my money was returned two days later.


fast forward to today, and i get a notice in the mail with capreit claiming i did not give them a 30 days notice, and because of this i owe them over a grand for aprils rent. the biggest thing that is getting me right now is that i am still unpacking. not only did i throw away lots of random papers i deemed useless, but if i did have any files left on capreit, i dont know where to find them. odds are that small papers would have been recycled (like the note they posted on my door about the pre-move out inspection on march 3rd)



so, long story already told, what should i be expecting here? what would be my best course of action? in this case i am 100% in the right, and i *should* have nothing to worry about. but rental companies like this are ruthless, and i am worried they might try and snake their way around this. what should i do to help defend myself?

thank you very much for any tips.

I don't have much useful advice other than start digging out your paperwork if it's still around and respond to the dispute resolution, iirc it costs $60 and a form to fill.

My experience is on the landlord side so I don't have much advice sorry

Do a search on the rta site and give them a call if you have questions.

Do you have any paperwork? Sent all the paperwork to the RTA and your landlord. The stuff you give to your landlord has to be by registered mail or in person.

Hopefully i can dig up my paperwork. Sadly I'm not sure how much i will be able to locate post-move.
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random update, had my little tenancy board of BC conference call. coles notes: i won.

the adjudicator couldn't understand why the rent loss thing was filed in the first place. i gave more than a months notice, moved out on time, gave them all necessary heads up and have done everything correctly.

done and done. hopefully their creditor stops calling me for the money i NEVER owed them in the first place.