My husband and I are scheduled to have a pre-trial hearing for a lawsuit brought by our former landlord's management company. The suit came out of nowhere, after three years of silence from the company. When we moved out of the apartment, we were sent a letter stating that we owed them over $500 above and beyond our $825 deposit we'd given at the beginning of our tenancy. We replied at the time, disputing the charges and telling them that we thought they owed us $400 of our deposit back. In the letter we sent them, we offered to just call it even to avoid the headache of court. We never heard back from them after that, and assumed it was finished.
Three years later, out of nowhere, we got a court summons for a lawsuit brought forth by an attorney representing the management company. We responded, as well as filing a counterclaim.
This afternoon, I happened to be checking my credit report, when lo and behold, I saw that the attorney who is suing us pulled a hard pull of my credit report!

I have a couple of questions regarding this whole situation. First, did the attorney break the FTC rules by pulling my credit report? I know the FTC website states that a collector may pull credit for collections purposes, but since they have never given us credit, nor have they proven we owe them anything, he has nothing to collect. It feels wrong that he did that, and if anyone can tell me for sure one way or the other if it was legit to pull my credit I'd appreciate it.
Second, while searching the internet for an answer to my first question, I read somewhere that a management company cannot sue a tenant, only the actual landlord can sue. The official paperwork states we are being sued by Attorney Joe Schmoe, representing Crappy Management Company. It says nothing about the actual property owner (Arnie *ss). So is this grounds to get the suit against us thrown out just because of that? We feel we have a solid case and that they will have a heck of a time proving that the owner spent 9 hours cleaning up the back yard, so we're not too worried about it if we have to go to trial, but it would be a whole lot easier if we can get their claim thrown out at the pre-trial hearing!

Thanks in advance, and if there's any need for additional info or clarification, don't hesitate to ask. I'm no attorney and don't claim to be the brightest crayon in the box, so if I've made this too confusing I apologize.

Another thing, just to let everyone know why we're disputing their claim that we owe them money... The property owner did all the repair work on the property himself, and paid himself $25 an hour for everything he did. Had he hired professionals, there's no way they would have gotten paid $25 an hour to mow the lawn, clean the kitchen, etc. AND, had he hired professionals, they wouldn't have taken 9 hours to mow the lawn, clean the kitchen, etc.
It's not reasonable to charge that much for labor, is it? He also charged us for things that we believe would be considered normal wear and tear, so there are several factors to why they're in the wrong here... Right?