Tax overallocations hide in special assessments, sale-triggered reassessments, and uncredited appeal refunds. Here's how commercial tenants can identify and dispute them.
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Find My OverchargesSee a sample report firstProperty taxes are treated as an uncontrollable expense in most NNN leases, which means they sit outside the CAM cap and are passed through without limitation on the percentage increase. That makes tax overallocations both harder to catch and more expensive when they occur, tenants cannot rely on a cap to limit the damage.
Tax overallocations take several forms: amounts that exceed what was actually assessed, categories the lease does not include within the definition of "taxes," timing errors that pull amounts outside the lease year into the reconciliation, and refund amounts that should have been credited but were not. None of these require the landlord to act in bad faith, misconfigured billing systems and imprecise lease drafting produce the same outcome.
The CAM pool includes $195,000 for property taxes. The actual tax assessment was $180,000. The $15,000 difference has no source, it may be a rounding error, a budget-based allocation that was never adjusted to actuals, or an inclusion of an expired assessment.
The fix is mechanical: compare the reconciliation amount to the actual tax bill for the property. Many landlords make this documentation available on request; others require a formal audit request to produce it.
Your lease defines "taxes" as real property taxes assessed against the building and land. What landlords sometimes include:
Special assessment district charges. Community facilities districts (CFDs), improvement districts, and special assessment bonds are not always real property taxes, they may be charges levied to fund specific infrastructure or public improvements. Whether they fall within the lease's definition of "taxes" depends on the exact language. If your lease says "real property taxes as levied by the taxing authority," and a special assessment is structured as a separate charge by a different issuing authority, it may be outside the definition.
Ground rent payments. If the landlord leases the land under the building, the ground rent is the landlord's direct obligation. It is not a tax and should not appear in the CAM pool.
Entity-level tax obligations. In Tin Tin Corp. v. Pacific Rim Park, LLC, 170 Cal.App.4th 1220 (Cal. Ct. App. 2009), the court reversed a finding that allowed the landlord to pass through its LLC taxes and fees under the "Real Property Taxes" category in the lease's CAM definition. The court held that the landlord's entity-level taxes were not real property taxes as described in the lease. This case is significant because it illustrates how broadly written operating expense definitions can still be constrained when a specific category does not match what the lease language actually covers.
Tax bills are not always aligned with the calendar year. A fiscal year property tax that covers July through June may be split across two calendar-year reconciliations. If the landlord includes the full year's tax in a single reconciliation period rather than correctly apportioning it, tenants in the shorter period overpay.
This also occurs with tax prepayment. Some landlords pay property taxes in advance to qualify for early payment discounts, then include the full discounted or undiscounted amount in the reconciliation period where payment was made, rather than the period the taxes cover.
When a landlord successfully challenges a property tax assessment and receives a refund from the taxing authority, that refund corresponds to taxes already passed through to tenants during the years covered by the appeal. If the landlord pockets the refund without crediting it back to tenants, those tenants have overpaid.
The National Taxpayers Union Foundation estimates that 30-60% of taxable property is over-assessed, and that most property owners who file appeals win at least a partial reduction. For commercial property at scale, successful appeals are routine. The obligation to credit appeal refunds to tenants exists in most well-drafted leases, but enforcement requires tenants to know the appeal was filed and to ask about the outcome.
California's Proposition 13 (California Constitution Article XIII A, §2) limits assessed value increases to 2% per year between changes in ownership. When a property is sold, the assessed value resets to the purchase price. For commercial properties that sold at a premium, the tax jump can be substantial, and it flows through to tenants immediately as higher CAM charges.
This is a tax pass-through that is contractually allowed under most NNN leases and legally authorized by state law. The dispute question is different: whether the lease caps tax increases, whether the reassessment was calculated correctly, and whether any applicable property tax exemptions or adjustments were applied. In Thrifty Payless, Inc. v. Americana at Brand (Cal. Ct. App. 2013), the tenant challenged its pro-rata shares of property taxes and other CAM items following large post-sale increases, alleging the charges substantially exceeded pre-lease estimates.
Texas Tax Code § 23.01(a) requires properties to be appraised at market value as of January 1 each year. Texas Tax Code § 25.18 requires each appraisal district to implement a reappraisal plan covering all real and personal property at least once every three years. Unlike California's reassessment-at-sale model, Texas uses annual market value appraisals subject to protest, which means year-to-year volatility in assessments and corresponding CAM fluctuation.
For tenants in Texas, tax protest outcomes have a direct CAM impact. If the landlord protests the assessment and succeeds, a refund should credit back to tenants. If the landlord does not protest an inflated assessment, tenants bear the full burden of the over-assessment. Some well-negotiated leases require the landlord to file protests when doing so would be commercially reasonable.
The CAM reconciliation shows $195,000 in property taxes. Your pro-rata share is 6%.
You request the tax bills and find:
Issues identified:
Your share of excess: $20,000 × 6% = $1,200
Plus: uncredited appeal refund from prior year ($12,000): Your share: $12,000 × 6% = $720
Total overcharge: $1,200 + $720 = $1,920 for the year.
Pull the tax line items from the reconciliation with descriptions.
Request the actual property tax bills for the reconciliation period. Verify the amounts, the property identification, and the tax year coverage.
Compare the reconciliation amount to the tax bill amount. Flag any excess.
Check whether special assessments or CFD charges are included. Look up the issuing authority, if it is not the county assessor or a standard taxing authority, investigate whether it falls within your lease's definition of "taxes."
Ask whether any tax appeals were filed for the covered period. If a protest was filed and resulted in a refund, verify whether that refund was credited in the reconciliation.
Verify the timing of tax payments in the reconciliation against the period the taxes cover. If a fiscal-year tax is split across two lease years, confirm that only the applicable portion appears in each year.
Under most NNN leases, yes, property taxes are passed through as incurred. If the property was sold and reassessed upward, the higher tax passes through. Whether the lease limits this depends on whether the lease caps tax increases, requires a gross-up, or adjusts for reassessment events. Some well-negotiated leases include provisions addressing sale-triggered reassessment specifically.
If the lease is silent on tax appeals, the landlord has no clear obligation to pursue them. However, many leases include a provision either requiring the landlord to file protests when cost-effective or giving the tenant the right to require a protest. If your lease has such language, enforcing it protects you from paying taxes that could have been reduced.
Yes, within the applicable audit window and statute of limitations. As with other overcharges, the clock runs from when each year's reconciliation was received and paid, or when you could reasonably have discovered the error. Document the issue and raise it in writing promptly once you identify it.
If the building is partially vacant and the lease requires the landlord to gross up operating expenses, the gross-up typically does not apply to property taxes because taxes are a fixed cost (they do not vary with occupancy). However, if the vacant space has a separate tax parcel or the lease excludes vacant space from the pool, verify that the full tax bill is not being allocated over fewer tenants without a corresponding reduction in the denominator.
Real property taxes are levied by the county or state taxing authority based on assessed value. Special assessments are charges levied to fund specific improvements, streets, sewers, lighting districts, or improvement zones, and may be administered by separate improvement districts. Many leases include special assessments within the definition of taxes; others exclude them. Check your lease's definition and compare it to the nature of the charge.
CAMAudit checks property tax allocations against the lease's definition of recoverable taxes, verifies the timing of tax year coverage, and flags amounts that exceed documented assessments or include categories your lease does not authorize. The system also identifies whether prior-year appeal credits were applied.
See also: The CAM Overcharge Detection Playbook, all 12 detection rules explained.
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