Common area maintenance (CAM)

CAM covers landscaping, parking-lot maintenance, hallway cleaning, security, and other shared-space costs. It bills monthly as an estimate and reconciles annually against actual expenses, with the difference billed or credited.

A retail tenant with 5,000 rentable SF in a 50,000-SF plaza pays 10% of the plaza's total CAM.

CAM is where commercial landlord–tenant disputes concentrate, because the tenant pays an estimate all year and only sees the arithmetic at reconciliation. Getting the estimate close and the reconciliation legible protects both the recovery and the relationship.

Set the estimate from last year's actuals plus a known adjustment, not a round number. Keep an expense pool that matches the lease's inclusions exactly. Reconcile on the same date every year and send the backup with the statement, not on request.

Including capital items the lease excludes, ignoring a negotiated cap or base-year exclusion, and reconciling late enough that the lease's own deadline has passed. Each of those turns a routine recovery into a credit.