Blog
How CAM reconciliation works.
Gross-up, base years, caps, administrative fees — written for the people who do the reconciliation, by the people who wrote the engine.
- September 18, 2026·6 min read
Are Management Fees Included in CAM Calculations? Yes — and the Administrative Fee Is Something Else
Two fees arrive on a CAM statement under names that sound the same and are not: the property management fee, which is an operating expense inside the pool, and the administrative fee, which is landlord revenue on top of the tenant's share. Here is which is which, how each is calculated, whether the management fee gets grossed up, and the double-charge a lease is written to prevent.
- September 18, 2026·7 min read
Allocating CAM Charges in Mixed-Use Properties: Pools, Denominators, and the Costs That Belong to One Use
Retail below, office above, sometimes residential on top — a mixed-use building shares some costs across every use and incurs others for one alone. Here is how the allocation is structured so that a retail tenant does not pay for the office lobby, an office tenant does not pay for the retail loading dock, and the check still closes on the whole building.
- September 18, 2026·10 min read
CAM Budget Gross-Up, Explained: The Multiplier, the Worked Example, and the Three Ways It Goes Wrong
Gross-up restates a building's variable operating expenses to what they would have cost at standard occupancy, so the tenants who are there pay a fair share and the landlord does not absorb the vacancy. Here is the formula, IREM's month-by-month example, what never gets grossed up, and why it is a clause of each lease rather than a setting of the building.
- September 18, 2026·12 min read
Common Area Maintenance Charges: What They Cover, What They Don't, and How They're Billed
Common area maintenance (CAM) charges are the tenant's share of what it costs to run the parts of a commercial building everyone uses. Here is what is usually in them, what a lease keeps out, how they are estimated and settled, the clauses that change the number, and what to look at before signing or paying.
- September 18, 2026·8 min read
Auditing a CAM Reconciliation Statement: What to Ask For, What to Check, and What Usually Turns Up
Most commercial leases give the tenant a right to audit the year-end CAM statement. Here is how the audit clause works, the documents to request, the eight checks that find most errors, what a landlord should have ready before the request arrives — and why a statement that shows its work is audited in an afternoon.
- September 18, 2026·7 min read
Tenant Disputes Over CAM Charges: Why They Start, How to Answer One, and How a Statement Prevents the Next
Most CAM disputes are not about greed on either side. They are about a figure that cannot be traced. Here are the five things tenants dispute most, what a landlord's answer should contain, the rule about corrected statements that keeps a dispute from becoming a second one, and the habits that make the next reconciliation season quieter.
- September 18, 2026·17 min read
CAM Reconciliation: The Complete Guide for Landlords and Property Managers
What a CAM reconciliation is, how the number is actually calculated — pools, gross-up, base years, caps, administrative fees, proration — the one check that proves it, and the mistakes that make a statement wrong while it still balances.
- September 18, 2026·10 min read
How to Calculate Common Area Maintenance Charges: A Worked Example, Step by Step
One shopping center, four tenants, a real year of expenses, an administrative fee that excludes taxes and insurance — every figure worked from the ledger to each tenant's balance, with the check at the end that proves it. Follow it with a calculator; nothing here needs anything else.
- September 18, 2026·8 min read
What Is CAM Reconciliation? A Plain Answer, With the Arithmetic
CAM reconciliation is the year-end settlement between what a commercial tenant was billed for operating expenses and what they actually owed under their lease. Here is what that means, how the number is reached, and what a tenant should look for on the statement.