How to audit a CAM reconciliation, step by step
Once a year your landlord compares the estimated CAM, real estate tax and insurance payments you made against actual costs, and bills or credits the difference. That reconciliation is where most overcharges hide. Here is how to check one properly.
1. Gather the right documents
You need the full lease with every amendment (later amendments override earlier terms), the reconciliation itself, and ideally last year's reconciliation for comparison. If the statement only shows totals, ask for the general ledger detail or the expense breakdown: most leases give you that right.
2. Pull the terms that control the math
| Term | Where it hides | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Pro-rata share | Definitions, "Tenant's Share" | A fixed percent, or your square feet over a denominator. Watch for a shrinking denominator. |
| CAM cap | Operating expenses section | Limits yearly growth of controllable costs, often 3 to 6%. Cumulative caps compound; non-cumulative ones reset. |
| Admin or management fee | Same section, often one sentence | A percent, and the base it applies to. Many leases exclude taxes, insurance and utilities from that base. |
| Exclusions | A long list of "Operating Expenses shall not include" | Capital repairs, landlord overhead, leasing costs, insurance deductibles and more. |
| Gross-up | Operating expenses section | Allows variable costs to be grossed up to an occupancy level, if at all. |
| Audit right | "Books and records" or "Audit" | Your deadline to object, usually 90 to 180 days, and whether the landlord pays for the audit if it overcharged you by more than a threshold. |
3. Check the share first
Recompute your share: your rentable square feet divided by the denominator the lease specifies. If the landlord excluded anchor or outparcel space the lease does not allow it to exclude, the denominator shrinks and your share grows. A share that moved from last year with no change in your premises is a red flag.
4. Walk every line against the exclusions
Classify each line: is it a cost the lease lets the landlord pass through? Roof replacements, parking lot resurfacing, HVAC replacements and other capital items are frequently billed as routine maintenance. So are the landlord's own salaries above the property manager level, legal fees for disputes with other tenants, and marketing for vacant space.
5. Apply the cap and the fee in the right order
Remove excluded costs first, then apply the cap to controllable costs, then compute the admin fee on the base the lease allows. Doing it in the wrong order, or charging the fee on taxes and insurance when the lease says not to, is one of the most common and most defensible findings.
6. Check the arithmetic and the timing
Add the lines yourself. Compare the year-over-year change by category. Note when the statement arrived: many leases require delivery within 90 to 120 days of year end, and some say a late statement waives the landlord's right to collect.
7. Object in writing, inside the window
Send a written objection citing each lease section, the statement line and the corrected amount, and ask for a credit or refund. Keep it factual and courteous; documented claims get conceded faster. Then follow up until the credit shows on your account.
Questions
How long does a CAM audit take?
A careful manual review of one reconciliation takes a few hours if the lease is familiar and much longer for a new one. Tenantback does the same checks in minutes and shows its work for each finding.
Do I need the landlord's general ledger?
Not to start. Most overcharges are visible from the reconciliation and the lease alone. The ledger helps when a line combines several costs or looks like it contains capital items.
What if I already paid the reconciliation?
Paying usually does not waive your right to object, as long as you are still inside the lease's audit window. Check the audit clause.
Check your own reconciliation, free
Email your lease and the landlord's latest CAM reconciliation to audit@tenantback.com. Tenantback's agents check every line against the lease and send back each overcharge with the clause and the math, usually within minutes. No signup. If you then recover money through Tenantback, it keeps 25% of what comes back, and nothing otherwise.
Using ChatGPT or Claude? Connect https://tenantback.com/mcp and ask it to audit your statement.