What information should a landlord provide when explaining gross-up?

At minimum, the landlord should provide the actual building occupancy percentage for the reconciliation period, the occupancy level used for the gross-up calculation, which expense categories were grossed up, and the resulting adjusted amounts. If they cannot provide these basic data points, the calculation likely does not comply with your lease.

Can a landlord gross up fixed expenses like property taxes?

No. Gross-up should only apply to variable expenses that fluctuate with occupancy, such as utilities, janitorial, and some maintenance costs. Fixed expenses like property taxes and insurance premiums do not change based on occupancy and should never be grossed up. CAMAudit distinguishes between fixed and variable expenses and flags improperly grossed-up fixed costs.

What if the building is 100 percent occupied but the landlord still applies gross-up?

If the building is fully occupied, there is nothing to gross up. Gross-up adjusts variable expenses to simulate higher occupancy. At full occupancy, the actual expenses already reflect the true cost. Applying gross-up to a fully occupied building inflates costs above reality.

Something Just Happened

My landlord will not explain how gross-up was calculated

Angel Campa, FounderCAMAudit

Last updated: April 2026

Gross-up calculations are one of the most opaque areas of CAM billing. When a landlord refuses to explain the methodology, it often signals that the calculation would not withstand scrutiny. Your lease grants you audit rights that include the right to understand how every CAM charge is derived. CAMAudit can reverse-engineer the gross-up from the numbers on your reconciliation and flag discrepancies without needing the landlord to explain their method.

TL;DR

Gross-up errors can inflate every variable expense on your reconciliation; getting the calculation right corrects multiple line items simultaneously.

Who this is for

Tenants who have asked their landlord to explain the gross-up calculation on their reconciliation and been refused, given an incomplete answer, or provided numbers that do not add up.

Who this is not for

Tenants whose lease does not contain a gross-up provision, or tenants who have not yet made a formal written request for the gross-up methodology.

What CAMAudit Checks in This Scenario

Rule 5

Gross-Up Violation

CAMAudit reverse-engineers the gross-up by comparing the billed variable expenses to what they would be at the occupancy level your lease permits, flagging any excess.

Rule 4

Pro-Rata Share Error

The scan checks whether the gross-up is interacting with the pro-rata share calculation to produce a compounding error, where both the expenses and the share percentage are inflated.

What to Do Next

1Document your request for gross-up documentation and the landlord response (or lack of response) in writing.
2Review your lease gross-up clause and note the permitted occupancy level, the types of expenses subject to gross-up, and any caps.
3Upload your lease and reconciliation to CAMAudit to have the gross-up calculation verified automatically.
4Review the findings to see whether the implied occupancy level used in the gross-up matches the lease-permitted threshold.
5Send a formal audit rights request to the landlord citing the specific lease clause and requesting the occupancy data used in the gross-up calculation.
6If the landlord continues to withhold information, consult an attorney about enforcing your audit rights.

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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.

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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.