A detailed lease audit checklist for reviewing landlord billing practices against executed lease terms. This checklist guides the audit process from document collection through final resolution, covering CAM charges, operating expenses, rent calculations, and insurance billing. It is designed for use by professional lease auditors and sophisticated tenants conducting self-audits.
By Angel Campa, Founder · Updated March 2026
Used by lease auditors, real estate attorneys, and large tenants with multi-location portfolios to systematically identify overbillings in landlord CAM statements and recover overcharges.
Lextract automatically extracts these fields from your lease PDF — eliminating the manual data collection underlying this checklist.
Industry studies suggest 50-75% of commercial lease audits identify some level of overbilling. For tenants paying $100,000+ annually in CAM, audits commonly recover $5,000-$50,000 or more. The recovery rate depends on lease complexity, landlord billing practices, and how long the audit period covers. Most auditors work on contingency, taking 25-40% of recovered amounts.
Most leases provide an audit right of 12-24 months from the date the CAM reconciliation statement is delivered. Some leases have a longer 36-month window covering multiple years. The audit must typically be completed within 60-90 days after notice is given. Missing the audit window permanently waives the right to dispute those charges.
Landlords can charge audit costs to the tenant if the audit reveals no overbilling, or if the lease specifically permits cost recovery. If the audit reveals an overbilling above a specified threshold (often 3-5%), the lease typically requires the landlord to pay audit costs. Negotiating favorable audit cost provisions is important at lease inception.
A step-by-step guide for tenants disputing CAM charges -- from requesting backup documentation to negotiating a settlement with your landlord.
What a proper CAM reconciliation spreadsheet needs to include, the most common calculation errors, and how to verify landlord CAM statements.
A comprehensive checklist of 125+ data fields every commercial lease abstraction should capture. Organized by category for easy reference.
Instead of working through this checklist manually, upload your lease PDF and get all 125+ fields extracted in under 3 minutes. Just $20 per lease — no subscription required.
Extract My Lease — $20