How to Verify Your CAM Charges With Public Records
Every dollar of your CAM bill runs through one number: the building-size denominator. Your pro-rata share is your space divided by the building total, so if the landlord understates that total, your share — and your bill — is inflated, often quietly, year after year. The good news is that the denominator and the costs behind it are not secret. They live in public records you can pull for free, which means you can cross-check the math yourself instead of taking the statement on faith. According to Tango Analytics (2023), roughly 40% of CAM reconciliations contain material errors, so the question isn't whether mistakes happen — it's whether you catch them before the window to ask closes.
How can you verify your landlord's CAM charges yourself?
You cross-check three public sources against the numbers on your CAM reconciliation statement: the building's true size (county property records), the reasonableness of the per-square-foot cost (BOMA operating-cost benchmarks), and your own lease terms. None of these requires the landlord's cooperation — they are records you can pull yourself, which is what makes a cross-check different from simply trusting the statement. It's also what makes it free: the costly traditional CAM audit pays a specialist to do reconstruction work, but the first-pass verification below uses only data that's already public.
What public records show your building's true size?
County assessor and property-tax records list the Gross Building Area (GBA/GFA) for a parcel, and you compare that figure to the building total the landlord uses to compute your pro-rata share. Always map to the gross area — never a net, usable, or leasable field (see the CAM glossary for how RSF, USF, and GBA differ), because using a smaller net figure as if it were the building total creates false discrepancies. If the landlord's building total is smaller than the county's recorded GBA, your share is being divided by too small a denominator and your bill is inflated. This is the single highest-leverage check, because the denominator multiplies into every line item at once.
How do you cross-check the size against the landlord's REIT filings?
If your landlord is a publicly traded REIT, the building's square footage usually appears in its SEC 10-K annual report or supplemental property schedules — a number the landlord published itself to investors. Because those filings are public and self-reported, a building total on your CAM statement that is smaller than the REIT's own stated square footage is a self-contradiction the landlord has to explain. SEC EDGAR hosts all of these filings for free, and it's a second independent anchor for the denominator: county records say one thing, the landlord's own investor disclosures say another, and they should agree.
What are BOMA benchmarks and how do they tell you if CAM is reasonable?
BOMA (the Building Owners and Managers Association) publishes operating-cost ranges per square foot by building type and region, and you compare your CAM cost-per-square-foot against that range. A per-SF CAM charge far above the BOMA benchmark for comparable buildings is a flag worth questioning — not proof of anything, but a reason to request the supporting detail. It tells you whether the total is in the realm of normal before you dig into individual line items, and it pairs naturally with checks for inflated mechanisms like a misapplied gross-up, which can push a small tenant's per-SF cost well past the benchmark.
What do you do once you find a discrepancy?
You use your right-to-review-records window — the time-limited right most commercial leases grant to request the landlord's supporting documentation after a reconciliation. This right is deadline-driven: miss the window and you may lose it, so confirm your deadline first. Bring the discrepancy and the public records behind it to your own attorney or auditor, who can advise on next steps. ReCAM's output is informational and meant for that human review — and before you raise it, you can estimate the dollars at stake with the free CAM overpayment calculator so you know whether the gap is worth pursuing.
The principle to remember: the numbers driving your CAM bill are public, so you never have to take the statement on faith — pull the county GBA, the REIT filing, and the BOMA range, and let the records do the talking.
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Informational only; not legal advice and not an audit or attest service. ReCAM is not a CPA firm and these services are not regulated by the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy. © ReCAM Technologies LLC.