Washington State commercial tenants — especially in Seattle — pay some of the highest CAM charges in the country. Here is what you can audit and what your rights are.
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See How It WorksSee a sample report firstSeattle has some of the highest commercial occupancy costs in the country. Tech company headquarters, biotech campuses, retail in Bellevue and the Capitol Hill corridor, and a dense submarket of mixed-use buildings in South Lake Union — all of it generates substantial CAM billing. And CAM billing at scale, in a market with landlord leverage and historically strong demand, creates systematic opportunity for overcharges.
40% of CAM reconciliations contain material errors (Tango Analytics / PredictAP, 2023)
After testing reconciliation samples through CAMAudit, I built the platform specifically to surface the categories of errors that appear in high-occupancy-cost markets: management fee inflation, pro-rata share manipulation, and capital expense misclassification. Washington tenants paying premium CAM rates deserve to know whether those rates reflect actual, authorized costs.
Washington commercial tenants have six years to bring a written contract claim under Wash. Rev. Code § 4.16.040. A commercial lease is a written contract. A CAM overcharge is a breach of that contract. You generally have six years from when each overpayment was made to initiate a recovery action.
Washington's six-year window is one of the more favorable in the West. It means that a tenant who has held a lease for six or more years can look back across every reconciliation cycle and potentially recover material errors from each one.
Accrual runs from the date of breach — generally the date the overpayment was made or the date the reconciliation containing the error was delivered. Washington also recognizes an implied covenant of good faith in contract performance, which can be relevant when a landlord's billing practices are systematically inconsistent with the lease.
Washington has no statute granting commercial tenants an independent right to audit CAM records. The Washington Residential Landlord-Tenant Act (Wash. Rev. Code § 59.18.010 et seq.) applies to residential tenants only. Commercial CAM disputes are governed by contract law and the lease terms.
Your audit rights depend entirely on what your lease says. Institutional leases used by major Seattle landlords typically include audit clauses with a 90-to-180-day window after the annual reconciliation delivery. If your lease was drafted by a smaller landlord or using a non-standard form, the audit clause may be absent or poorly defined. An absent audit clause is not the same as no rights — you still have the six-year statutory window and the ability to demand records as a contracting party — but it means your path to those records runs through negotiation or litigation rather than a clear contractual mechanism.
Before submitting an audit request:
Office tenants in Seattle's technology corridor — South Lake Union, Capitol Hill, Eastlake, and Denny Triangle — operate in buildings that often have complex expense pools with multiple service providers and significant management overhead. The overcharge patterns most common here:
Management fee inflation. Washington office leases commonly allow a management fee of 3–5 percent of operating expenses. Rule 3 (Management Fee Overcharge) checks whether that fee was calculated on the correct base. In many Seattle office leases, capital expenditures, insurance, and real estate taxes are explicitly excluded from the CAM pool before the management fee is applied. When the fee is applied to a gross operating expense total that includes those excluded items, the fee overstatement can run $5,000 to $15,000 annually on a mid-size office tenancy.
Capital expenditure passthrough. Rule 12 flags major property improvements that are billed as maintenance expenses. In Seattle's aging office stock — much of it renovated in the 2010s and again during the post-pandemic repositioning — landlords have passed through roof membrane replacements, elevator modernizations, and major mechanical upgrades as operating expenses. Whether these qualify depends on whether the lease explicitly excludes capital expenditures (most institutional leases do) and whether the landlord has properly amortized costs that span multiple years.
Landlord overhead. Rule 13 (Landlord Overhead Pass-Through) catches situations where landlord administrative costs — leasing commissions, internal accounting staff, executive compensation components — get blended into the operating expense pool. This is more common in owner-operated buildings than in institutionally managed properties.
Bellevue retail tenants in Bellevue Square adjacent corridors and the Crossroads and Factoria submarkets face the standard triple-net lease overcharge patterns:
Pro-rata share errors. Rule 4 checks whether your stated percentage share of the building's GLA matches your actual leased square footage divided by the correct denominator. In Bellevue strip centers and lifestyle centers, GLA calculations sometimes include storage areas, mechanical rooms, or kiosk space that inflates the denominator without a corresponding reduction in your stated share percentage. A 3 percent discrepancy on a $60,000 annual CAM bill costs you $1,800 per year — $10,800 over the six-year recovery window.
Gross-up violations. Retail leases with gross-up provisions adjust variable CAM costs to a 95 percent occupancy assumption when the building is below that threshold. Rule 5 checks that only variable costs (janitorial, utilities, common area maintenance labor) were included in the gross-up calculation, not fixed costs like insurance premiums and property taxes. Including fixed costs in a gross-up inflates the adjusted total and passes phantom occupancy costs to tenants.
Insurance overcharges. Washington commercial property insurance has increased significantly since 2022, and landlords in the Seattle market have passed through those increases. Rule 9 checks whether the type of insurance being billed falls within the scope of what your lease authorizes. Umbrella liability premiums, directors and officers insurance, and environmental coverage are routinely excluded from CAM-able insurance costs in standard lease forms. When those appear in the insurance line without explicit lease authorization, they represent a potential overcharge.
CAM cap violations. Many Washington retail leases cap annual CAM increases — 5 percent per year compounded is common. Rule 6 checks that the year-over-year increase does not exceed the cap. Landlords sometimes reset the base incorrectly after a lease renewal or modification, which defeats the cap's protective function.
Base year errors. Office leases structured with a base year stop require tenants to pay only the amount by which CAM exceeds the base year level. Rule 7 checks that the base year operating expenses were correctly established and that the landlord has not been collecting above-stop amounts before the stop was actually exceeded.
Controllable expenses cap overcharge. Some leases cap increases in controllable expenses — operating costs within the landlord's control — separately from total CAM. Rule 8 checks that controllable expenses are correctly classified and that the cap has not been exceeded by including expenses that belong in the controllable category.
Identify the earliest reconciliation year still within the six-year statutory period. For a dispute initiated in April 2026, that is any reconciliation delivered on or after April 2020. Cross-reference this with your lease's audit clause deadline to determine which years remain actionable under the contractual audit right.
Washington has no statutory delivery method requirement for commercial CAM demand letters. Use certified mail as the default; if your lease allows email notice, send it electronically and retain delivery confirmation. Your request should:
Upload your lease and CAM reconciliation statements to CAMAudit. The platform runs all 14 detection rules in under 15 minutes and produces a flagged report showing each potential issue, the specific lease provision it may violate, and the calculated dollar impact. The report is the foundation for your demand letter.
Tabulate the claim year by year. Apply Washington's prejudgment interest rate — 12 percent per annum under Wash. Rev. Code § 19.52.010 (or the rate specified in your lease) — if your lease or litigation strategy supports an interest claim. The demand letter should state the amount, the supporting evidence, and a 30-day response deadline.
Washington commercial tenants who send documented demand letters typically see one of three outcomes:
Negotiated credit or refund. Most landlords prefer to resolve a well-documented CAM dispute by applying a credit to future rent obligations or issuing a refund. A clear, numbered demand with supporting documentation is more likely to generate a prompt offer than a vague objection.
Additional record production. The landlord may produce supporting records that explain the charges. Some apparent overcharges are explained by lease-specific definitions or historical cost allocations that were not visible in the reconciliation statement alone. CAMAudit's analysis is based on the documents you upload — additional records may confirm or rebut the flagged issues.
Dispute or non-response. If the landlord disputes your findings or fails to respond, your options include direct negotiation, mediation (if required by the lease), and filing in Superior Court. Washington Superior Courts have jurisdiction over commercial lease contract claims; smaller claims may qualify for limited jurisdiction courts depending on the amount in dispute.
Washington's six-year SOL gives you time to pursue the claim methodically even if the landlord delays.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Written contract SOL | 6 years (Wash. Rev. Code § 4.16.040) |
| Commercial CAM statute | None |
| Accrual rule | Date of breach (each overpayment) |
| Prejudgment interest rate | 12% per annum (Wash. Rev. Code § 19.52.010) |
| Audit rights | Lease-defined only |
| Good faith covenant | Recognized in commercial contracts |
How far back can Washington State commercial tenants recover CAM overcharges?
Washington's statute of limitations for written contracts is 6 years under Wash. Rev. Code § 4.16.040. Each annual reconciliation that contained an overcharge triggers its own 6-year window from the date the overpayment was made. A tenant in a 7-year lease could potentially recover overcharges from 6 of those 7 years, subject to any shorter windows written into the lease's audit clause.
Does Washington have any statute specifically protecting commercial tenants in CAM disputes?
No. The Washington Residential Landlord-Tenant Act applies only to residential tenants. Commercial CAM disputes are governed by general contract law and the lease. This means audit rights, dispute windows, and documentation obligations all come from the lease. Washington does recognize an implied covenant of good faith in commercial contract performance, which can be relevant if a landlord's billing practices are systematically inconsistent with the lease.
What CAM overcharges are most common in Seattle office leases?
Management fee inflation is the most common overcharge in Seattle office leases. Landlords frequently calculate the management fee on a gross operating expense base that includes capital expenditures, insurance, and taxes — even when those items are excluded from the CAM pool under the lease. Capital expenditure misclassification is the second most common issue: HVAC replacements, elevator modernizations, and structural repairs passed through as maintenance operating expenses. CAMAudit's Rule 3 checks the management fee calculation and Rule 12 flags capital expense misclassification.
If I am a retail tenant in Bellevue with a CAM cap in my lease, how do I know if it was applied correctly?
A CAM cap limits your annual CAM increase to a fixed percentage — commonly 5% per year compounded. CAMAudit's Rule 6 checks whether the year-over-year change in your actual billed CAM exceeds the cap. Common errors include resetting the base year incorrectly after a lease modification, excluding certain expense categories from the cap when the lease says they should be included, or applying the cap to the reconciled total rather than the estimated payment amount. Upload your reconciliation and lease to CAMAudit and the rule runs automatically.
Legal Disclaimer: This article provides general educational information about Washington State commercial lease law and CAM dispute rights. CAM audit rights, statute of limitations, and dispute procedures vary by lease and jurisdiction. Consult a licensed Washington attorney for advice specific to your situation.
