Suggestions on a "notice to dispute" from old apartments

[320icar]

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.

[GLOW]

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.

[Manic!]

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.

[320icar]

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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[320icar]

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.