Alberta’s Commercial Tenancies Protection Act limits landlords’ ability to enforce commercial leases when a tenant’s non-payment, force majeure claim or continuous-occupancy breach results from circumstances beyond the tenant’s control caused by COVID-19. It also bars pandemic-period late fees, penalties and rent increases, while requiring affected landlords and tenants to establish payment plans.
The protection is retroactive to March 17, 2020 and generally runs through August 31, 2020, unless regulations set another end date. The Act does not erase rent obligations or create a general commercial eviction moratorium: landlords retain remedies for specified serious breaches, and tenants remain liable under payment plans after the protected period.
At a Glance
What It Does
The Act voids lease provisions that permit specified pandemic-related defaults to trigger notices of default, distraint, eviction, termination or other remedies. It also prohibits late fees, penalties and rent increases during the emergency period, requires refunds or credits for prohibited charges, and requires payment plans where COVID-19 prevents a tenant from meeting rent obligations.
Who It Affects
It applies to commercial landlords and tenants in prescribed classes whose agreements were in effect on March 17, 2020, along with certain agreements made before that date but taking effect during the emergency. Property owners, managers, commercial operators, assignees and approved subtenants can all fall within the defined landlord or tenant categories.
Why It Matters
The Act temporarily overrides ordinary lease enforcement and reallocates pandemic-related cash-flow risk between landlords and tenants. Its broad regulation-making powers mean the practical scope, payment-plan rules and some enforcement rights depend on regulations as well as the statute.
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What This Bill Actually Does
The Act covers commercial tenancy agreements in force in Alberta on March 17, 2020, plus certain agreements entered into before that date and made effective during the public health emergency. It excludes residential tenancies and mobile-home-site tenancies because those arrangements are governed by separate legislation.
The statute applies only to classes of landlords and tenants prescribed by regulation, so the definitions alone do not determine the final coverage.
During the protected period, a landlord cannot use a pandemic-caused failure to pay rent, a COVID-19 force majeure or frustration issue, or a pandemic-caused breach of a continuous-occupancy clause as the basis for lease enforcement. The restriction applies despite contrary lease language.
It does not prevent action for listed serious breaches, including illegal activity, significant interference with others, danger to people or property, significant damage, abandonment, certain insolvency events, or failure to leave after an unrelated lease expiry.The financial protections operate separately from the enforcement bar. Landlords cannot charge or collect late fees or penalties for rent during the protected period.
If a tenant already paid a prohibited amount, the landlord must refund it or provide a credit. Landlords also cannot increase rent under an existing agreement.
If the parties replace an agreement covering the same premises during the period, the new rent is temporarily capped at the previous rent, with refunds or credits required for overcharges.A tenant that cannot meet its rent obligations because of COVID-19 must enter into a payment plan with the landlord. The plan may continue after the emergency end date and must account for prohibited fees, penalties or rent that the landlord has not refunded.
Once the protected period ends, the landlord can use the remedies available under the lease as modified by the plan if the tenant fails to comply.The Act makes a waiver of its protections void and treats non-compliance by a landlord as a substantial breach of the tenancy agreement. It also authorizes the Minister to prescribe covered classes, change the emergency end date, refine enforcement limits and establish additional tenant rights.
Amendments align related protections in the Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act and Residential Tenancies Act with the Act’s date language and emergency framework.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The emergency end date is August 31, 2020 unless regulations prescribe a different date. The Act gives the Minister authority to change that date by regulation.
The Act applies to tenancy agreements in effect on March 17, 2020 and certain pre-March 17 agreements made effective during the emergency, but only for landlord and tenant classes prescribed by regulation.
A landlord may still act for specified substantial breaches, including illegal activity, significant damage, danger, abandonment, qualifying insolvency events and unrelated failure to vacate at lease expiry.
Prohibited late fees and penalties must be refunded or credited, and prohibited rent increases or replacement-agreement overcharges must also be refunded or credited.
A payment plan legally modifies the tenancy agreement and can extend beyond the emergency period; failure to follow it after that period restores the landlord’s contractual remedies as modified by the plan.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Defines the parties and limits statutory coverage
The Act defines rent broadly to include operating costs, but not security deposits, and treats written, oral, implied and licensed commercial occupancy arrangements as tenancy agreements. Its landlord definition reaches owners, lessors, property managers, agents and other persons attempting to exercise landlord rights; its tenant definition includes assignees, approved subtenants and personal representatives.
Those definitions are subject to a significant scope constraint: the Act applies only to prescribed classes of landlords and tenants. It covers qualifying commercial agreements connected to March 17, 2020, excludes residential and mobile-home-site tenancies, and does not undo an eviction or termination completed before first reading.
Blocks pandemic-related enforcement and termination
For the protected period, landlords cannot issue default notices, distrain for rent, evict, terminate or otherwise exercise lease remedies when the relevant problem is pandemic-caused non-payment, a COVID-19 force majeure or frustration issue, or a breach of continuous occupancy. Conflicting lease provisions are void to the extent of the inconsistency, subject to regulations.
The protection is targeted rather than absolute. A landlord can still rely on the listed substantial breaches if the tenancy agreement identifies them as grounds for eviction or termination. This preserves remedies for conduct that threatens people, property or other tenants, as well as certain abandonment, expiry and insolvency situations.
Freezes late charges and emergency-period rent increases
Section 4 prohibits late fees and penalties for rent that falls within the protected period, including collection after the period ends. Any amount already paid in violation must be refunded or credited, preventing landlords from converting a temporary prohibition into a later collection claim.
Section 5 freezes rent under existing agreements and prevents a landlord and tenant from using a replacement agreement for the same premises to increase rent before the emergency end date. The landlord must return or credit the difference if it charged more than the Act permits. These rules address both direct rent increases and attempts to reset rent through a new contract.
Requires post-emergency payment plans
When COVID-19 prevents a tenant from meeting rent obligations, the landlord and tenant must enter into a payment plan. The statute does not prescribe a single repayment formula, but it expressly allows plans to continue beyond the emergency end date and requires them to account for prohibited amounts that have not been refunded.
The plan functions as a contractual amendment. After the protected period, a tenant’s failure to follow the plan can expose it to the landlord’s remedies under the original agreement as modified by the plan, creating a path from temporary relief to structured recovery rather than permanent rent forgiveness.
Creates tenant remedies for landlord non-compliance
A landlord’s non-compliance constitutes a substantial breach of the tenancy agreement. The tenant can use rights already provided for substantial breaches in the agreement, along with any additional rights established by regulation.
Because the section relies partly on the lease and partly on future regulations, the immediate remedy may vary between agreements. The provision nonetheless gives tenants a way to respond when a landlord charges prohibited amounts or uses a barred enforcement mechanism.
Overrides waivers and delegates implementation
Tenants cannot waive or release the Act’s rights, benefits or protections. The Act prevails over inconsistent arrangements, while the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act continues to operate. These provisions prevent private contracting from eliminating the statutory protections while preserving a separate public-safety enforcement regime.
The Minister may prescribe covered landlord and tenant classes, alter the emergency end date, define payment-plan and enforcement rules, clarify substantial breaches and establish further tenant rights. Regulations may operate retroactively to the extent they state, which gives the executive branch substantial control over how the statute applies to past conduct.
Aligns residential and mobile-home tenancy amendments
The Act amends the Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act and Residential Tenancies Act to clarify the wording of emergency-period date ranges for rent increases, replacement agreements and late-fee restrictions. These amendments are related statutory cleanup and alignment rather than extensions of the commercial-tenancy regime.
The changes ensure that the parallel residential protections use the same beginning-and-ending date structure, reducing ambiguity over whether conduct falls inside the emergency period.
Applies the commercial protections retroactively
The main Act, apart from the related amendments, has effect from March 17, 2020. The amendments to the Mobile Home Sites Tenancies Act and Residential Tenancies Act have effect from March 27, 2020.
This retroactivity matters because it reaches rent increases, fees, penalties and enforcement steps taken after the specified dates, subject to the Act’s exclusions and the separate rule protecting evictions or terminations completed before first reading.
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Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Commercial tenants whose pandemic-related revenue losses made rent unaffordable benefit from protection against eviction, distraint, default notices and other lease remedies during the emergency period.
- Tenants that paid late fees, penalties or emergency-period rent increases can recover those amounts through refunds or credits rather than carrying them into the post-emergency period.
- Businesses operating under continuous-occupancy clauses receive protection when COVID-19 circumstances prevented them from maintaining the required presence, while remaining responsible for other lease obligations.
- Approved subtenants, assignees and certain personal representatives benefit because the statutory tenant definition extends beyond the named original lessee.
- Commercial tenants facing inconsistent lease language gain non-waivable protections that private agreements cannot contract away.
Who Bears the Cost
- Commercial landlords and property managers lose access to specified enforcement tools during the emergency period even where the lease would otherwise authorize them, and they must administer refunds, credits and payment plans.
- Landlords bear delayed cash flow because rent remains due but pandemic-related arrears generally cannot be enforced immediately and may need to be repaid over a period extending beyond the emergency end date.
- Owners that increased rent or charged prohibited fees must identify affected accounts and return or credit the excess, creating administrative and accounting work.
- Tenants that remain unable to recover after the emergency period may face concentrated repayment obligations under payment plans, particularly where the statute does not impose a uniform repayment schedule.
- Commercial lenders, purchasers and insolvency professionals may face uncertainty when assessing premises-related remedies because qualifying pandemic defaults are temporarily insulated while listed insolvency and abandonment exceptions remain available.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The Act tries to keep viable commercial tenants in their premises without converting landlords into involuntary providers of permanent rent relief. It delays enforcement, freezes certain charges and mandates payment plans, but leaves the rent debt and much of the repayment structure intact. That protects business continuity in the short term while preserving a risk of concentrated arrears, negotiation disputes and landlord cash-flow strain after the emergency period.
The Act protects tenants from immediate loss of premises without forgiving the underlying rent. That distinction shifts the central problem into payment-plan negotiations.
The statute requires a plan but does not itself establish a repayment cap, affordability test, mediation process or standard treatment of operating costs, leaving substantial room for disagreement and regulatory detail.
Scope is another pressure point. The Act applies only to prescribed classes, and the Minister can alter the emergency end date and define important enforcement rules, including additional tenant rights.
That flexibility may help tailor relief to changing conditions, but it also means parties cannot determine the full legal regime from the enacted text alone. The retroactive regulation power increases the need to preserve records of charges, notices, rent changes and communications.
The substantial-breach exceptions create a fact-sensitive boundary. A landlord cannot use a pandemic-related payment failure as a pretext for enforcement, but can still act for damage, danger, illegal activity, abandonment or qualifying insolvency.
Disputes may therefore turn on whether the stated breach is genuine and independently established, or whether it is being used to bypass the temporary protection.
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