Alberta has a higher than average turnover rate in the rental market than most of Canada. It is unclear why Alberta has a higher turnover rate, but we have heard that the options available to tenants and landlords to end a tenancy are ineffective or too severe. There are more than a dozen reasons a landlord or tenant may end a tenancy under the Residential Tenancies Act. The rules and conditions for ending a tenancy [...]
The Residential Tenancies Act governs the relationship between landlord and tenant. More specifically, it governs the relationships between people renting a place as a home. The Residential Tenancies Act does not govern the relationships created when renting a commercial place, and it does not govern the relationships of people renting mobile home sites. The Residential Tenancies Act affects hundreds of thousands of people living in Alberta, more than one quarter of all households in the [...]
This is one out of a series of reports related to residential tenancy issues in Alberta. This report addresses issues eight and nine identified in ALRI’s Residential Tenancies Act: General Issues paper. 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. While there are many aspects of the English common law that still inform the law [...]
The Alberta Law Reform Institute [ALRI] intends this report to help users of the family court system. ALRI’s goal is to help users understand the ways in which the views of children affected by family court proceedings can be heard in Alberta. This report does not have recommendations for change. Instead, it is meant to be a helpful resource for legal professionals and users of the family court system. This report describes the ways in [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
See some of the most frequently asked questions about our law reform project on access to digital assets by fiduciaries. Learn more about what digital assets are, the problems that arise from signing user agreements and the obstacles people can face with trying to access when trying to access a loved one's digital assets after their death or incapacity.
