Pennsylvania commercial tenants in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have audit rights they rarely exercise. Here is what your lease and state law allow you to demand.
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See How It WorksSee a sample report firstPennsylvania's commercial real estate market runs through two distinct engines: Philadelphia's dense urban core and suburban Main Line office and retail corridors, and Pittsburgh's resurgent downtown and suburban strip center market. Both markets share the same dynamic that drives CAM disputes everywhere — landlords control the accounting, tenants pay the bills, and reconciliation errors favor the party doing the calculation.
40% of CAM reconciliations contain material errors (Tango Analytics / PredictAP, 2023)
That 40% error rate holds across markets. When our tool processed reconciliation samples from Pennsylvania-style NNN statements, the same categories appeared: management fees calculated against an inflated base, pro-rata denominators that exclude anchor space but include it in gross-up calculations, and capital expenditures appearing as single-year operating expenses. Pennsylvania's 4-year statute of limitations is tighter than many states — acting promptly matters more here than almost anywhere else on the East Coast.
Pennsylvania's statute of limitations for written contract claims is 4 years under 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5525(a)(8). The clock runs from the date of breach — typically the date each improper CAM charge was billed or collected.
Four years is shorter than most commercial tenants expect. This matters because CAM reconciliation statements are often issued 3–6 months after the lease year ends, and tenants may not scrutinize them carefully at receipt. By the time a tenant realizes something is wrong, they may already be approaching the SOL on older charges.
The practical implication for Pennsylvania tenants: if you have not reviewed your CAM statements in the last 2–3 years, the window for recovering the oldest overcharges is closing. A tenant who waits until the final year of a 5-year lease to audit will find that charges from years 1 and 2 are already time-barred.
Note also that lease contracts impose their own shorter challenge windows — typically 60 to 180 days after the annual reconciliation is delivered. Pennsylvania courts enforce these contractual conditions independently of the statutory SOL. Missing the lease window can bar a claim that would otherwise be within the 4-year statutory period.
Pennsylvania has no state statute granting commercial tenants the right to audit CAM records. The Pennsylvania Landlord and Tenant Act (68 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 250.101 et seq.) applies primarily to residential tenancies. Commercial tenants' audit rights exist only if the lease creates them.
Pennsylvania recognizes an implied duty of good faith in contract performance. This does not create an independent audit right, but it does mean that a landlord who actively conceals CAM overcharges or refuses to provide any documentation in response to a legitimate written request may face arguments beyond simple breach of contract. Good-faith arguments rarely substitute for a negotiated audit clause, but they inform the dispute posture.
A well-negotiated Pennsylvania commercial audit clause will specify:
Philadelphia's Center City, University City, and the Main Line suburban corridor (Wayne, Berwyn, King of Prussia) host a substantial inventory of Class A and B office properties managed by institutional landlords. Several overcharge patterns are particularly common in this market.
Management fee overcharges. Philadelphia office leases commonly cap the management fee at 3–5% of operating expenses. The overcharge mechanism is typically an expanded fee base — one that includes taxes, insurance, or utility pass-throughs that should be excluded. On a large Center City building with $5 million in total CAM collections, even a 0.5% fee overcharge represents $25,000 per year across all tenants.
Landlord overhead pass-throughs. Institutional landlords managing Philadelphia CBD assets sometimes allocate regional management costs, legal fees for unrelated matters, or corporate administrative expenses to individual property CAM pools. Lease language typically limits permitted management fees to property-level services. CAMAudit's landlord overhead detection rule classifies each fee against the lease's permitted expense categories.
True-up errors. Pennsylvania office tenants commonly make monthly estimated CAM payments throughout the year, with an annual true-up reconciliation. If the estimated payments are based on inflated projections, tenants overpay throughout the year and are owed a credit. If the annual reconciliation calculation itself contains errors, the true-up perpetuates those errors. CAMAudit's true-up verification rule cross-checks the annual reconciliation against the estimated payment schedule.
Pittsburgh's commercial market — anchored by the CBD, East Liberty, Shadyside, and the suburban South Hills and North Hills corridors — has a significant stock of older retail and office properties where capital maintenance disputes are common.
CapEx misclassification. Aging commercial properties in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County regularly undergo major capital replacements. Lease language typically requires that capital expenditures be either excluded from CAM entirely or amortized over useful life (HVAC systems: 15–20 years; roofs: 20 years; parking lots: 10 years). Landlords who charge the full replacement cost in the year it occurs are violating this provision. CAMAudit's CapEx classification rule identifies these items.
Pro-rata share errors. Pittsburgh strip centers and suburban retail parks often have anchor tenants paying fixed CAM contributions. When the anchor's square footage is included in the denominator used to calculate inline tenants' pro-rata shares, those tenants' shares are understated relative to what the lease intends. CAMAudit's pro-rata share rule reconstructs the correct denominator from the lease and flags discrepancies.
Pennsylvania retail leases widely include CAM caps limiting controllable expense growth to 3–5% annually. The post-pandemic inflationary period (2021–2023) produced widespread CAM cap violations in Pennsylvania as landlords passed through elevated operating costs without applying the lease-required ceiling. CAMAudit's CAM cap detection rule reconstructs the allowed ceiling year by year and identifies any overages.
Base year errors affect Pennsylvania tenants in modified gross leases where the tenant pays operating expenses above a base year stop. A landlord who establishes the base year during a low-occupancy or low-cost period creates a floor that understates normal expenses — increasing the tenant's pass-through exposure in every subsequent year. Gross-up errors — applying the normalization calculation to fixed costs or failing to apply it to variable costs — compound the problem.
Pennsylvania's commercial CAM dispute process is contractual. There is no state agency that mediates these disputes. The path runs from your lease's audit clause through demand letters to negotiation and, if necessary, the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas.
Step 1: Identify every relevant deadline in your lease. Pennsylvania commercial leases typically impose a challenge window of 60 to 180 days after the annual reconciliation is delivered. Confirm the exact deadline — including how "delivered" is defined in the notice provisions — before taking any other action.
Step 2: Send a written documentation request via certified mail. Reference your audit clause. Request the general ledger, specific invoices for questioned items, the management fee calculation worksheet, and the pro-rata share allocation. Certified mail with return receipt creates the delivery record you will need if the dispute escalates.
Step 3: Run CAMAudit on your lease and statement. The platform applies all 14 detection rules and returns a structured findings report identifying each potential overcharge with the specific lease provision being violated and the arithmetic demonstrating the discrepancy.
Step 4: Send a formal dispute letter. The dispute letter draft should identify each overcharge by line item, state the amount billed, state the amount permitted under the lease, show the arithmetic, and demand a credit or refund within 30 days. Send via certified mail.
Step 5: Negotiate or escalate. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh institutional landlords typically have legal and property management resources to respond to documented disputes. Well-supported claims often resolve with partial or full credits. If the landlord refuses to engage substantively, engaging a Pennsylvania commercial real estate attorney and considering a Court of Common Pleas filing is the next step.
Pennsylvania landlords managing institutional commercial assets generally acknowledge dispute letters within 2–3 weeks and respond substantively within 30–60 days. The response typically comes from the property management accounting team and may include a request for additional time to compile records.
A substantive response will either offer a partial credit, concede specific items and dispute others, or reject the claim with a counter-argument. Partial concessions are common when the landlord's internal review surfaces errors they were not previously tracking.
If they concede, document the settlement precisely. A written credit memo or lease amendment specifying the amount, application period, and any mutual release protects against future disputes.
If they reject, the strength of your documentation determines your leverage. CAMAudit's findings report — with specific lease citations, line-item amounts, and the arithmetic showing each overcharge — is the kind of evidence that supports a credible litigation threat.
Prejudgment interest in Pennsylvania accrues at 6% per annum under 41 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 202 (or the contract rate if specified in the lease). On a $30,000 overcharge claim that takes 18 months to resolve, that adds $2,700 to the landlord's exposure.
Pennsylvania's SOL for written contract claims is 4 years under 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 5525(a)(8). This is shorter than many tenant-friendly states. The clock runs from the date of each breach — when each improper CAM charge was billed or collected. A tenant auditing today can potentially recover overcharges from reconciliation statements issued within the past four years. Lease-defined challenge windows are typically shorter and operate as contractual deadlines independently of the statutory SOL.
No. The Pennsylvania Landlord and Tenant Act applies primarily to residential tenancies. There is no Pennsylvania statute granting commercial tenants a statutory audit right. Your right to inspect CAM records depends on your lease's audit clause. Without an audit clause, you can demand documentation and dispute charges under general contract law, but you cannot compel access to the landlord's books without litigation discovery.
Look for fee categories described in broad language: "administrative fees," "management services," "corporate allocations," or similar. Compare these descriptions to your lease's definition of permitted CAM expenses. Leases typically permit property-level management fees at a defined percentage — they do not permit corporate overhead, regional management costs, or fees that are not specifically tied to services rendered at the property. CAMAudit's landlord overhead detection rule flags any fee category that does not match the lease's permitted expense definitions.
The first step is determining whether your lease's CAM cap applies to the expenses that increased. Most caps apply only to "controllable" expenses — janitorial, landscaping, security, and similar discretionary operating costs. Non-controllable expenses (property taxes, insurance, utilities) are typically excluded from the cap. If the increased costs are in controllable categories and the total billed exceeds the cap ceiling, you have an overcharge claim. Calculate the allowed ceiling from your lease terms and compare it to what was billed each year. CAMAudit automates this calculation and identifies the specific years and amounts that exceed the cap.
