Get Residential Tenancies: Distress for Rent, Final Report 122.
The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) has published Residential Tenancies: Distress for Rent, Final Report 122.
Distress for rent is an ancient common law self-help remedy that, under certain conditions, allows a landlord to seize and sell a tenant’s property to recover unpaid rent.
This report recommends that distress for rent should be abolished for residential tenancies in Alberta. This report, and its recommendations, are limited to distress for rent in residential tenancies. It does not apply to distress for rent in non-residential tenancies such as commercial or mobile home site tenancies, or other forms of distress.
While there are many aspects of the English common law that still inform the law in Alberta, what makes distress for rent unusual is that it remains substantively unchanged since its reception in 1870. Alberta is the only common law jurisdiction in Canada that allows distress for rent as a self-help remedy in residential tenancies, in contrast to many other Canadian provinces that have abolished it over 5o years ago.
The report recommends that distress for rent should be abolished in residential tenancies for the following reasons:
- Distress for rent is primarily made up of ancient common law principles and old English statutes;
- Bailiffs rarely seize and sell enough property to recover the value of the unpaid rent;
- Landlords can be liable for any errors made when the remedy is used (and the complexity of the law makes it hard to do correctly);
- There are more modern, effective, and less risky remedies available to landlords to collect unpaid rent; and
- Distress for rent can be uniquely socially and economically devastating to tenants.
Get Residential Tenancies: Distress for Rent, Final Report 122.