A lease provision limiting the annual increase in controllable CAM expenses to a specified percentage (commonly 3-5%) or a fixed dollar amount. CAM caps protect tenants from runaway expense escalation in multi-year leases.
CAM caps apply only to "controllable" expenses - those within the landlord's management control, such as janitorial, landscaping, and management fees. Uncontrollable expenses (taxes, insurance, utilities) are almost always excluded. The base year for cap calculation and whether the cap is cumulative vs. non-cumulative dramatically affect the cap's practical value.
A lease caps controllable CAM at 5% annual increases. The landlord reclassifies 40% of controllable expenses as "utilities" (uncontrollable) and applies no cap to those charges - effectively stripping the cap's protection from nearly half of the CAM pool.
Negotiate for cumulative (not non-cumulative) caps. A non-cumulative 5% cap means if expenses only rose 2% last year, the unused 3% does not carry forward - the cap resets. A cumulative cap compounds the unused ceiling into future years. When reviewing your lease, lextract.io extracts your CAM cap type, base year, and cap percentage into structured fields so you can verify them against the reconciliation without hunting through the full PDF.
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A CAM audit is only as accurate as your lease data. lextract.io extracts 126 structured fields from any commercial lease PDF: CAM definitions, pro-rata share, caps, base year, and audit rights. So you have the exact terms your landlord is supposed to follow.
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Find My OverchargesThis page provides general educational information. It is not legal advice and may not reflect the most current law in your state. Consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.
