CAM, tax and insurance reconciliations during due diligence
August 5, 2018
More often than not, when acquiring a property or portfolio, prospective purchasers are focused on future cash flows. When it comes to CAM, taxes and insurance, it is future reconciliations that will have the most impact on the buyer’s cash flow.
However, when acquiring a property, it is critical to get as many years of CAM, tax and insurance reconciliations from the seller as possible. While a purchase and sales agreement may put the burden for retroactive adjustments on the seller, a tenant doesn’t care where the credits are coming from – seller or buyer.
But, often, there is another need for these historical reconciliations. If a tenant has a cap on any charge, a buyer may need to substantiate prior billings in order to justify current caps – especially in the case of a non-cumulative cap where you may need to show actual charges on a year to year basis.
Just this week, we had a tenant in a center that our client had acquired two years ago. CAM charges were fixed for this particular tenant. However, every five years, the fixed charge was to have been reset based upon the actual CAM charges for the prior five years.
Without the historical billing files, there would be no way to reset the tenant’s charge, leaving significant amounts of cash flow on the table.
So, whenever possible, even though you may do nothing with it, get as many years of historical reconciliations as possible!