CAM reconciliation statements come out January through April. That's when your audit window opens and when most tenants discover overcharges. Here's the timing you need to know.
CAM audit season is not a vague concept. It has a specific calendar tied to your lease year, your landlord's delivery obligations, and your dispute window. Miss the window and you may forfeit the right to challenge charges that year. Understand it and you can recover overcharges before the deadline closes.
Run the audit before you decide whether this applies to your lease.
Find My OverchargesFind overcharges in your CAM reconciliation. Most audits complete in under 5 minutes.
Find My OverchargesSee a sample report firstFor most calendar-year commercial leases, landlords must deliver the annual CAM reconciliation statement within 90 to 120 days of December 31. That puts the delivery window solidly in March and April, with some landlords delivering in February and others stretching into May.
80 to 90 percent of CAM audit volume runs in Q1 and Q2. That concentration is not coincidental. It follows directly from when statements land in tenants' hands.
Here is what the calendar looks like for a standard calendar-year lease:
| Period | What Happens |
|---|---|
| November to December | Landlord closes the operating expense ledger, compiles invoices, calculates management fees |
| January to February | Early statements delivered; prompt-paying landlords with tight internal processes |
| March to April | Peak delivery window; most tenants receive reconciliation statements during this period |
| April to May | Late statements arrive; some landlords miss lease-mandated delivery deadlines |
| May to July | Dispute windows closing for statements delivered in February and March |
| August onward | Outside the window for most leases; focus shifts to prior-year lookback audits |
If your lease runs on a non-calendar fiscal year, shift the entire calendar. A lease year ending March 31 means statements typically arrive June through August, with dispute windows extending into fall.
The dispute window is the period after receiving the reconciliation statement during which you can formally challenge charges. Most leases give tenants 30 to 90 days after delivery. Some leases offer 180 days. Office leases with robust audit rights clauses sometimes allow 12 months.
The window length depends entirely on your specific lease language. Check Section [Audit Rights] or Section [Tenant's Right to Audit] in your lease right now, before you need it.
Missing the dispute window has real consequences. The legal doctrine called "account stated" holds that if you receive a statement, pay it, and do not dispute it within the contractual window, you may have acknowledged the charges as correct. Courts have applied this doctrine inconsistently in commercial lease cases, but the risk is real enough to take seriously. Do not assume you can challenge a charge three years later if you had an audit right and did not use it.
I built CAMAudit specifically around this seasonal pattern. The math is straightforward. If 40 percent of reconciliations contain billing errors and your annual CAM bill is $30,000, there is a meaningful chance you are overpaying. The question is whether you audit during the window and recover it, or let it go.
Traditional audit firms charge $2,000 to $5,000 upfront plus a 25 to 33 percent contingency on recoveries. CAMAudit costs $199. The break-even is obvious.
Pro-rata share errors alone can compound significantly. One state auditor's office identified $55,421 in excess CAM charges over six years from a single pro-rata denominator error that no tenant had caught.
Running an audit after your dispute window closes does not mean there is nothing left to do. It means your options shift.
Most states allow commercial tenants to bring contract claims for 4 to 6 years from the date of the breach. If an overcharge constitutes fraud or a material breach of contract rather than a simple billing error, the statute of limitations on those claims may extend your window significantly beyond the lease's dispute provision.
More practically, your lease's audit rights clause typically allows you to audit prior years within a defined lookback period, often 3 to 4 years. An audit outside of season for prior years can identify compounding errors that produced overpayments across multiple reconciliation cycles.
CAMAudit processes reconciliation statements year-round. Tenants submit statements from prior years regularly, and compounding errors across three or four reconciliation years often produce recovery amounts larger than any single-year audit would suggest.
Lease language governs most CAM disputes, but state law creates a floor. A few things worth knowing:
California: California courts have been active in commercial lease disputes. SB 1103 (2024) introduced new disclosure requirements for commercial leases under certain square footage thresholds. Tenants in California should verify their audit rights are not waived by acceptance language in the reconciliation statement itself.
New York: New York applies a 6-year statute of limitations on contract claims. Commercial tenants who missed a lease dispute window may still have claims if the overpayments were recent enough.
Texas: Texas commercial leases often include very short dispute windows, sometimes 30 days. Tenants in Texas should prioritize immediate review upon statement delivery.
Florida: Florida's 5-year contract statute of limitations applies broadly to commercial lease disputes. Florida courts have generally enforced audit rights clauses as written.
Regardless of state, the single most important thing to do is read your specific lease's dispute and audit rights language before season starts. Do not rely on general market norms.
The tenants who recover the most from CAM audits do not wait for a problem to appear. They run audits proactively, every year, as part of normal lease administration.
Running an audit before a problem becomes obvious gives you negotiating leverage at lease renewal. If your landlord knows you audit annually, billing accuracy improves. Landlords who know tenants audit carefully tend to make fewer errors.
The other advantage of proactive auditing: you establish a baseline. Year-over-year comparison is one of the fastest ways to catch systematic overcharges. If your CAM bill jumps 15 percent year-over-year but your lease cap is 5 percent, you need that prior-year number to make the calculation.
“I built CAMAudit to solve the timing problem. Most tenants know something might be wrong, but they do not know when to look or what to look for. The answer to 'when' is simple: the moment the reconciliation lands. The answer to 'what' is the 13 detection rules we run automatically on every statement.”
For a deeper look at the full audit process, see our commercial lease audit guide. For help understanding what the audit actually costs, see our CAM audit cost guide.