It's reconciliation season. Most commercial tenants will receive their 2025 annual CAM reconciliation statement between February and April 2026. What you do with it in the next 30 to 180 days matters, and here's why: many leases contain a clause that says if you pay without objecting, you've agreed the statement is correct. That window for objecting is already open.
Here's what to do, and what to check, before it closes.
When reconciliations arrive: the 90-120 day rule
Most commercial leases require landlords to deliver the annual CAM reconciliation within 90 to 120 days after the close of the fiscal year. For properties on a calendar year basis (December 31 year-end), that puts delivery in late March or early April.
Not every property follows a calendar year. Some landlords use a June 30 or September 30 fiscal year-end. If yours does, your statement might arrive in October or January instead.
To find your delivery deadline, open your lease and go to the CAM or operating expense exhibit (often Exhibit B or C). Search for "reconciliation" or "annual statement." Look for a phrase like "Landlord shall deliver... within [X] days after the end of each calendar year." That number is the latest your landlord is required to send it.
If you haven't received a statement and you're past that deadline, your lease may have provisions that matter. More on that at the end.
What to do the day it arrives
Don't log it and pay it.
The moment the reconciliation lands in your inbox or mailbox, note the date of receipt. This is your dispute clock start date. Many leases tie the audit rights window to when the statement was delivered, not when the lease year ended. A landlord who delivers in March gives you a different deadline than one who delivers in June, even for the same fiscal year.
Next, pull your lease and find your dispute deadline. Look for phrases like "Tenant shall have the right to audit... within [X] days of receipt of the statement." This number ranges from 30 to 180 days in most commercial leases. Some extend to 12 months.
Set a calendar reminder for 30 days before that deadline. The window sounds generous until it isn't. If you receive the statement in April and your window is 90 days, you need any dispute initiated by July. That goes fast when you're running a business.
One thing worth being clear about: the payment due date on the reconciliation and your audit rights deadline are two different things. Paying on time doesn't waive your right to dispute. Waiting too long to dispute often does.
What to check first
Before uploading anything or calling anyone, spend 30 minutes on these four areas. They're where our detection engine finds overcharges most often.
Pro-rata share percentage. Your reconciliation should state the percentage used to allocate shared costs to your space. Compare it to what your lease says: your rentable square footage divided by the total rentable area of the property. A 2% error in the denominator is a 2% overcharge on every CAM line item.
Management fee rate and base. Your lease specifies both the allowed fee rate (typically 3-5%) and what it can be applied to. Check whether the billed fee matches the rate, and whether it was applied to a cost base the lease permits.
Capital improvements in the expense pool. Roof replacements, HVAC upgrades, parking lot repaving -- these are capital expenditures that most leases explicitly prohibit from being passed through as annual CAM. They sometimes appear anyway, usually under vague descriptions like "building improvements" or "facility upgrades."
CAM cap application. If your lease has a CAM cap, it limits how much your charges can increase year over year. Verify the billed amount doesn't exceed what the cap permits relative to your base year charges. You'll need last year's statement to run this comparison.
None of these require accounting expertise. They require your lease, last year's reconciliation, and about 30 minutes you'd otherwise spend refreshing email. If anything looks off, that's your trigger to run a full audit before the window closes.
The dispute window is real: what "account stated" means
Most tenants learn about this doctrine when it's already been used against them.
Under contract law, if you receive a bill, pay it, and don't object within the time your lease specifies, courts may treat that bill as an "account stated." You've implicitly agreed it's correct, and you lose the right to dispute it later.
This isn't hypothetical. Courts have ruled against tenants who paid reconciliation statements without objecting, even when there were clear calculation errors, because the dispute window had closed.
Paying your reconciliation doesn't protect you. You can pay it and still dispute it, as long as you do so within the window your lease specifies. What forfeits your rights is paying without objecting and letting the deadline pass.
Look in your lease for language like: "Tenant's failure to object within [X] days shall be deemed Tenant's acceptance." If that clause is in your lease, the deadline is firm. Not advisory. Firm.
What CAMAudit does during reconciliation season
I built CAMAudit specifically for this window. The tool runs your documents through 20 detection rules covering everything above, plus gross-up violations, base year errors, controllable expense caps, utility overcharges, insurance overcharges, and landlord overhead pass-throughs that most leases prohibit.
Upload your lease and your 2025 reconciliation statement at camaudit.io/scan. The tool processes both documents and runs all 20 rules. Results come back in under 15 minutes. You get a summary of every flag, with a dollar amount attached to each finding.
The scan is free. If the results show overcharges worth acting on, you pay $179 to unlock the full report and the dispute letter draft.
The dispute letter draft references your specific lease clauses, names the exact findings, and includes a structured request for credit or refund. You don't have to write anything from scratch. You review it, adjust the tone if you want, and send it.
$179 is less than most tenants lose in a single month of an undetected pro-rata error.
If your reconciliation hasn't arrived yet
Check your lease for the landlord's required delivery date. If you're past it, you may have more options than you think.
Some leases say the landlord forfeits the right to collect additional charges if they miss the delivery deadline. Others allow the tenant to demand delivery and give the landlord a cure period. Look for language like "Landlord's failure to deliver the statement within [X] days shall..." to see what your lease actually provides.
If there's no such provision, your position is less clear, but you can still act:
- Send a written request to your property manager asking for the statement, and reference the delivery deadline clause in your lease
- Document the date you sent it
- Once the statement arrives, your dispute clock runs from actual delivery, not the missed deadline
Late delivery usually means software delays, staff turnover, or a property management company that's behind on everything. It's rarely strategic. But document it either way. If a dispute ever hinges on when the clock started, that paper trail is what wins the argument.
The 2025 reconciliation season is running now. If your statement has arrived, the clock is already moving. If it hasn't, it will.
Run a free scan at camaudit.io/scan before your window closes.