Does Alberta require a standard lease form?
No. Alberta's Residential Tenancies Act does not prescribe a particular form, so landlords and tenants are free to use whatever written agreement suits them. That flexibility makes a clear, complete written lease more important, not less, because there is no official template filling in the gaps. An oral tenancy is still a tenancy, but a written agreement protects both sides.
What the law applies regardless
Even though the form is up to you, the Residential Tenancies Act sets obligations that apply to every residential tenancy in Alberta whether or not the lease mentions them. A lease cannot remove the rights, benefits, or protections the Act provides. So a written agreement should record the specifics, the parties, the rent, the term, the deposit, while relying on the Act for the baseline rules it cannot override.
Security deposits in Alberta
A landlord can collect a security deposit of no more than one month's rent. The deposit must be held in an interest-bearing trust account, and interest is owed to the tenant. A move-in and move-out inspection report is required for the landlord to make deductions, so completing and keeping those reports is what makes a deposit dispute straightforward later.
Once a lease is signed, keeping it, the rent record, and the key dates in one place is what turns a later question into a lookup. See how Habyn handles lease management and rent tracking.