How do I find the actual building occupancy rate for my reconciliation year?

Public REIT filings, local property records, and commercial real estate data providers sometimes publish building occupancy. You can also ask your landlord directly in writing, which they are generally required to disclose if your lease audit rights clause covers occupancy data. The CAMAudit findings report flags the discrepancy and specifies what disclosure to request.

What is the difference between gross-up and a CAM cap?

A gross-up adjusts variable expenses upward to reflect a hypothetical full-occupancy cost level. A CAM cap limits how much controllable expenses can increase year over year. They are separate protections. A building can violate both simultaneously: the gross-up inflates the base and the cap limits growth from that inflated base. CAMAudit checks both independently.

Something Just Happened

My landlord is grossing up expenses but the building is 90% or more occupied

Angel Campa, FounderCAMAudit

Last updated: April 2026

Gross-up provisions exist to protect tenants from paying artificially low CAM amounts when the building is nearly empty. When your building is already at or above 90 to 95 percent occupancy, grossing up expenses increases your bill above actual costs with no legitimate justification. CAMAudit flags this violation by checking the actual building occupancy against the gross-up threshold in your lease.

TL;DR

Gross-up violations are mathematically precise: the landlord is charging you more than actual costs incurred, which is directly measurable and disputable with building occupancy data.

Who this is for

Tenants who know their building is at high occupancy (90 percent or more) but see gross-up language or inflated variable expense figures on their CAM reconciliation.

Who this is not for

Tenants in buildings where occupancy is genuinely low, where gross-up provisions are designed to apply and typically benefit the tenant by normalizing costs across the lease term.

What CAMAudit Checks in This Scenario

Rule 5

Gross-Up Violation

CAMAudit compares the actual building occupancy rate disclosed in or derivable from the reconciliation against the gross-up threshold defined in your lease and flags any gross-up applied at an occupancy level that exceeds the permitted threshold.

What to Do Next

1Locate the gross-up clause in your lease and note the occupancy threshold it requires before gross-up can be applied (typically 95 percent or below).
2Research your building occupancy for the reconciliation year, using public filings, the property website, or the landlord's own disclosures.
3Upload your reconciliation and lease to CAMAudit to have Rule 5 run against your actual documents.
4If the gross-up was applied incorrectly, calculate the dollar impact by comparing actual expenses to the grossed-up figure.
5Send a written dispute to your landlord citing the gross-up clause, the actual occupancy data, and the resulting overcharge.
6Request a corrected reconciliation showing actual expenses without gross-up adjustment.

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What is a CAM audit?

Use the audit process if you still need to validate the billing error.

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Frequently asked questions

Need to extract lease terms before your audit?

A CAM audit is only as accurate as your lease data. lextract.io extracts 126 structured fields from any commercial lease PDF: CAM definitions, pro-rata share, caps, base year, and audit rights. So you have the exact terms your landlord is supposed to follow.

Go to lextract.io

This page provides general educational information. It is not legal advice and may not reflect the most current law in your state. Consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.