Your lease uses a cumulative CAM cap rather than a non-cumulative (annual) cap. While having any cap is better than none, a cumulative cap allows the landlord to bank unused increases from low-cost years and apply them all at once in a future year, creating unpredictable expense spikes.
By Angel Campa, Founder · Updated March 2026
Flagged when the CAM cap type is set to "cumulative" rather than "annual" or "non-cumulative."
Consider a lease with a 5% cumulative CAM cap starting at $30,000 in base year charges. If CAM increases only 2% in years one through three, the landlord banks the unused 3% each year. By year four, the landlord has 14% of banked capacity. If actual costs spike that year, the tenant could face a single-year increase of up to 14% — jumping from roughly $31,800 to $36,250 in one year. Over a 10-year lease, cumulative caps can result in $15,000 to $25,000 more in total CAM charges compared to a non-cumulative cap at the same percentage.
Negotiate for a non-cumulative (also called "annual" or "compounding") CAM cap. This structure resets the baseline each year to actual charges, preventing banked increases. If the landlord insists on a cumulative cap, negotiate a "circuit breaker" clause that limits any single-year increase to no more than twice the annual cap percentage. Also request that the cumulative cap be calculated from actual expenses each year rather than the maximum allowable amount.
A cumulative CAM cap tracks unused increase capacity over multiple years. If the cap is 5% but costs only rise 2% one year, the landlord banks the remaining 3%. In future years, the landlord can apply these banked increases on top of the stated cap, leading to potentially large single-year jumps.
Yes, a cumulative cap is significantly better than no cap. It still limits total expense growth over the lease term. However, it provides less year-to-year predictability than a non-cumulative cap because expenses can spike in individual years.
Cumulative CAM caps are more common in landlord-favorable markets and in leases negotiated by tenants without specialized legal counsel. In competitive tenant markets, non-cumulative caps are the standard. Always push for non-cumulative if market conditions allow.
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