Reviewing Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) is working on a project to look at the rules for landlords and tenants in Alberta. This includes reviewing a law called the Residential Tenancies Act. The Residential Tenancies Act explains the basic rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants. It says what each side must do or not do. It also gives ways to solve problems between landlords and tenants. This summary document highlights some of the issues [...]

By |2026-02-02T10:48:32-07:00February 2nd, 2026|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Residential Tenancies Act, Issues Paper 7

This report is the second in a series summarizing issues under Alberta’s Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1. This report, and the others in the series, lay the groundwork for a larger project on residential tenancies. This series of reports does not make any recommendations to reform. Rather, the series is an inventory of issues. The first report introduced the project and focused on general issues with the Residential Tenancies Act. The second report [...]

By |2026-02-12T08:16:35-07:00February 12th, 2026|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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The Residential Tenancies Act: General Issues

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) has published Residential Tenancies Act: General Issues. This is the first in a series of reports summarizing issues in the law that affects tenants and landlords on a daily basis. The Residential Tenancies Act is important because it affects over 25% of households in Alberta and often involve not just money, but also the basic necessity of shelter, quality of life, health and well-being of landlords, tenants and families [...]

By |2025-06-12T09:29:45-06:00March 25th, 2025|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Rent Control: Security of Tenure, Research Paper 1

This paper, which is in two parts, addresses questions of governmental action to ensure the availability of affordable and secure housing. The first section of the paper addresses rent control, i.e. statutory control over how much a landlord may charge in rent. The paper discusses: different systems of rent control, arguments for and against rent control, alternatives to rent control, and, issues that must be addressed when considering rent control. The first section also includes [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:39:41-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Entry of Landlord; Locks and Security Devices, Research Paper 2

This three-part paper, deals with the different rules that govern who may or may not enter leased property. Each section surveys the statutory provisions (regulating the issue in question) of various jurisdictions throughout Canada at the time of publication, and lists issues relating to the question covered in the section. The first section of the paper addresses the right of the tenant to exclude entry by the landlord and his or her agents. The second [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:39:53-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Obligation to Repair; Security Deposits, Research Paper 3

This paper addresses the three somewhat disparate issues listed in the title. The first section of the paper surveys the common law rules (throughout Canada) and statutory rules of several jurisdictions within Canada (at the time of publication) regulating the duties of a landlord and tenant to maintain and repair certain parts of leased property (and associated properties, such as elevators, hallways, parking stalls, etc.). Issues that must be addressed when considering these rules are [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:40:04-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Termination Procedures; Failure of Tenants to Pay Rent; Overholding Tenants, Research Paper 4

This paper deals generally with issues that arise at the ending of the legal relationship between a landlord and a tenant. Each section of the paper includes an informative introduction, a survey of legal rules throughout jurisdictions in Canada (at the time of publication), and issues raised around the topic of the section. The first section of this paper deals generally with the termination of the landlord and tenant relationship, and specifically with three aspects [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:40:19-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Resolution of Disputes; Landlord and Tenant (Advisory) Boards; Distress, Research Paper 6

This paper addresses several issues related to the resolution of disputes between landlords and tenants, and is broken into three sections. The first section is a broad overview of extra-judicial processes for resolving disputes between landlords and tenants, and includes and overview of the process as conducted in Alberta at the time of publication, as well as a listing of issues relevant to any similar dispute resolution process. The second section is a survey of [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:41:00-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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Contract or Property Law; Form and Delivery of Lease; Right to Assign and Sublet, Research Paper 7

The laws of contract and property are fundamentally different, with different common law, equitable, and statutory guarantees coming into play when dealing respectively with property and with a contract. The first part of this paper considers whether the relationship between landlord and tenant, as determined by the Residential Tenancies Act at the time of publication, should be regulated by the law of property or the law of contract, and how this regulation should work. The second part [...]

By |2021-02-08T13:41:10-07:00November 4th, 1975|Uncategorized|0 Comments
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