common area maintenance

Definition

Shared expenses for maintaining lobbies, parking lots, landscaping, and other communal spaces in commercial properties, billed proportionally to tenants. Abbreviated as CAM, it's where landlords demonstrate remarkable creativity in defining what counts as 'maintenance.'

Example Usage

The retail tenant was shocked when CAM charges added $8 per square foot to their quoted rent, including the landlord's management fees.

Origin

Commercial real estate leasing terminology, standardized in post-WWII shopping center development

Fun Fact

CAM charges have been the subject of thousands of tenant-landlord disputes, leading to increasingly detailed lease definitions of allowable expenses.

Source: Commercial lease standards and practices

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