The CAM overcharge checklist.

CAM (common area maintenance) charges cover the shared costs of a property — parking lot upkeep, landscaping, lighting, security, and the like. The trouble is that what's recoverable, how it's capped, and how your share is calculated all live in the lease, while the bill arrives as a single annual reconciliation number. A creeping overcharge can sit on your P&L for years before anyone questions it. Here's how to check.

The 10-point CAM overcharge checklist

1. 1Pull the CAM clause and read the definition. Find exactly how the lease defines common area maintenance and which costs are recoverable. Everything else flows from this.
2. 2Confirm the exclusions. Capital expenditures, roof and structural repairs, the landlord's own management overhead, and costs covered by warranty or insurance are commonly excluded, yet often slip into the bill.
3. 3Check the CAM cap. Many leases cap the annual increase in controllable CAM (for example, 3–5%). Verify the landlord honored the cap and didn't reset the base.
4. 4Verify your pro-rata share. Your share should be your leasable square footage divided by the total gross leasable area. A shrinking denominator quietly raises your percentage.
5. 5Request the year-end reconciliation detail. Don't accept the summary number. Ask for the line-item backup behind the reconciliation statement.
6. 6Compare year over year. Line items that jumped sharply — security, management fees, snow removal — deserve an explanation, not a pass.
7. 7Hunt for excluded costs billed anyway. Capital improvements dressed up as "repairs," structural work, and the landlord's administrative salaries are the usual offenders.
8. 8Check the gross-up provision. If the center isn't fully occupied, variable costs should be grossed up to a stated occupancy, not spread entirely onto the tenants who are there.
9. 9Find your audit rights and the deadline. Most leases give you a window — often 60 to 120 days — to request supporting documents and dispute. Miss it and the number stands.
10. 10Document and raise it before the window closes. Put discrepancies in writing, cite the lease clause, and start the dispute while you still have the right.

Doing this across many locations

Running this checklist once is manageable. Running it across a portfolio, every year, against leases that all say something slightly different, is where it falls apart — and where the overcharges hide. AllureTrak's Allure Intelligence reads each lease, pulls the CAM terms, caps, and exclusions to the front, and surfaces them against what you're billed, so the variance comes to you instead of you hunting for it. See CAM reconciliation software and lease management software.

This checklist is general information for operators, not legal, tax, or accounting advice. Review your specific lease terms with your attorney or CPA.