And we’re back! If you’re new to the blog, go back and read my last entry, as this post is a continuation of it.
So you’re renting a place and you’ve decided that you want to move out. You looked at the lease that you signed and you realize that you’re renting under a monthly periodic tenancy, and that the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) applies to you and your landlord. What steps do you have to take now?
First, you have to give written notice. The notice must give the address of the place that you are renting, you must sign it, and you must also give the date that you will be moving out. There are organizations in Alberta that have developed written notices that you can use. You also have to serve the notice on your landlord.
The RTA says that a tenant in a monthly periodic tenancy must give one full tenancy month’s notice. If the tenant does not give enough notice to the landlord, then the written notice is still effective to end the tenancy, just not for that date. Here’s an example.

If you have a monthly periodic tenancy that begins on the 1^st day of the month and ends on the last day of the month, and you give your notice on, for example, February 2 to end the tenancy on February 29, your notice would work to end the tenancy, but not for February 29. See, February 2 to February 29 is not a full tenancy month, but March 1 to March 31 is a full tenancy month. This means that if you gave your notice on February 2, your tenancy ends on March 31. You have to pay the rent for the entire notice period. The tenant must move out by 12 noon on the last day of the tenancy, unless there is an agreement between the landlord and the tenant that states otherwise.

You can talk to your landlord about making a different agreement in relation to the move out date and time and the amount of rent that is due, but your landlord does not have to negotiate with you. Sometimes, if you are a problem tenant, or if the landlord can find a new tenant that wants to move in right away, then the landlord will agree to an early end date. I once spoke to a woman who had been given multiple notices for noise violations from her landlord. She decided she wanted to move out immediately so she spoke to her landlord, and he was more than happy to have her move out right away (I’m sure he would have offered to help her pack if he thought he could have got her out a day sooner). If you can come up with an agreement with your landlord, then you should put this agreement in writing.
If you decide to just walk away and not pay rent for the notice period, then your landlord can keep some or all of your security deposit to cover the unpaid rent. Your landlord could also make an application against you (which isn’t hard, so don’t think your landlord won’t do it). Did you know that a court order in Alberta is good for ten years? That means that if your landlord gets an order against you now, s/he has ten years to collect the money from you. I know many university students out there who may not have money now, but will within ten years, and the last thing they should want is some unpaid court order out there waiting to swoop into their bank accounts and garnish next week’s mortgage payment.
Come back next week to learn about what you can do if you have a fixed term lease and you want to move out.
You can read more about ending a periodic tenancy on the Laws for Tenants in Alberta website here or in Service Alberta’s Voluntary Code of Practice here.
You can read about enforcing a court order on the Alberta Courts website here.

With a new year comes a time of reflection, when people often think about where they are in their lives and where they want to be, and make decisions about how best they can get there. I’m sure that we’ve all woken up one morning, opened a bleary eye, looked around at the place we’re renting and wondered: “How did I get here? And how do I escape?” in a not-entirely-joking kind of way. Apparently, that’s what a lot of tenants were thinking about when they rolled out of bed on January 1, and many of them decided that they want to move out now; as in today, not tomorrow, not next month, but right now! Can a tenant just pack up and go? What are the laws that a tenant has to follow to end a lease, and what can happen when a tenant doesn’t follow these laws?
First, under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA) there are two types of tenancies within Alberta. There is a periodic tenancy, which means that there is no end date stated within the lease, and the lease simply continues on indefinitely, until something happens to end it (for example, if the tenant gives notice to end the tenancy). The most common type of periodic tenancies are month-to-month tenancies. Periodic tenancies can also be week-to-week, or year-to-year.
The other kind of tenancy is called a fixed term tenancy. This means that there is an end date stated directly within the lease. The most common type of fixed term lease is a one year lease, but they can be for periods of time longer or shorter than one year. The tenancy automatically ends on the date stated in the lease. If, at the end of the fixed term, the tenant continues to rent the property but does not come up with a new agreement with the landlord, then the tenancy automatically becomes a periodic tenancy.
Each type of tenancy has different rules for how the tenancy ends. Now that I have you all aquiver with anticipation to learn about this subject, I’m going to pull a realty show move and tell you to tune in next week to find out what the rules are to end a tenancy. Insert evil laugh here.
More Information:

• Types of Leases
• Does the lease have to be in writing?
• What can be included in the lease?
• Does everyone who is living in the property have to be named on the lease?
• Can the Landlord require a tenant to provide proof of insurance?
• What happens at the end of a fixed term lease?