Glossary
Lease Terms & Dates
Rentable Square Footage
The square footage figure used to calculate a tenant's pro-rata share, combining the tenant's usable space with an allocated portion of common areas. Landlords use this figure, not usable square footage, to set the CAM denominator and the tenant's monthly base rent.
Firm impact
When your firm audits a client's CAM statement, rentable square footage should trace straight back to the number written in the lease, not a newer number from a later remeasurement. A firm that skips this check can miss a pro-rata share error hiding in plain sight, since the wrong square footage produces a wrong percentage on every line of the reconciliation.
How this gets abused
A landlord remeasures the building using a different area standard and bumps the tenant's rentable square footage from 7,000 to 7,500 without a lease amendment. Every reconciliation after that measures the tenant's pro-rata share against the higher number, adding thousands of dollars a year with no signed change to justify it.
Practitioner note
Pull the lease's stated rentable square footage from the signature page or Exhibit A and compare it line by line against the number used in the current reconciliation. Any mismatch is evidence for a Pro-Rata Share Error finding, and CAMAudit's Pro-Rata Share Error rule flags the gap once the correct lease figure is entered.
FAQ
Questions about rentable square footage
What is the difference between rentable and usable square footage?
Usable square footage is the space the tenant occupies exclusively. Rentable square footage adds a share of the building's common areas, such as lobbies, hallways, and restrooms, on top of that usable figure.
Does CAMAudit check rentable square footage against the lease?
Yes. CAMAudit's Pro-Rata Share Error rule compares the tenant's rentable square footage from the lease against the denominator used in the reconciliation and flags any mismatch, including the dollar impact.
You know the term. Now check the math.
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