We are at the first reconciliation of CAM charges with our landlord / property management company, and in our audit we have found that they are adding a line item for ""Management Fees"" and this is the single largest charge in the CAM expenses for the year...
You should also know that you have other areas of concern regarding you CAM provision. Normally you should avoid including reimbursement for anything called a ""REPLACEMENT"", or ""RESERVES"" in you CAM provision. Both of these expressions usually relate to expenses that are capital in nature, and tenants should almost never pay for capital expenditures. Your CAM provision is full of the word ""REPLACEMENT(s)"" and includes a payment for ""RESERVES"". Your lease attempts to appear reasonable about how the RESERVES collected
in CAM costs are assessed, but the mitigating language that is added to the CAM description of how capital expenditures will be assessed is hijacked by allowing the landlord to use his own personal determination as to how much will be assessed each year as a CAM expense. The lease could have stated that the landlord will assess the capital improvements over the useful life of the expenditure ""in accordance with GAAP (a nationally recognized and accepted standard of the accounting profession) procedures, and not as determined by ""the landlord"".
In summary, contrary to your statement that ""management fees do NOT seem like a part of 'Common Area Maintenance""; it is very common for landlords to include Management Fees in the category of CAM expense.
HOWEVER, you have very explicit text in your CAM provision that addresses which component costs will be included in CAM, and ""Management Fee(s)"" is conspicuously missing. You are therefore absolutely correct that this is ""FISHY"". Further, if your landlord suggests that the CAM lease statement ""all costs and expenses of personnel to implement the foregoing services"" allows them to make Management Fees included as part of the CAM Fees, they are wrong. Careful review of the ""foregoing services"" delineated in the text that lists the ""foregoing services"" reveals that 'Management Services"" is NOT included. ( I once had an owner include all the costs of a two week trip to La Costa as a management expense. He told me that he and his guest were talking about the property expenses while they were on the trip, and so bonafide management charges.)
I am concerned that your landlord will not back down on this problem. However, my guess is that hiring a specialist to win this argument will not be cost effective for you. Keep in mind however, that if you pay for these Management fees this year, you will pay for them in every following lease year over the term of your lease.
There are many nightmarish landlords that abuse unsuspecting tenants, but there are also many fine and honest owners that would be embarrassed by such abuse.
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