HVAC Maintenance in CAM Reconciliation
Maintenance, repair, and operation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems serving the building's common areas and base building infrastructure. Includes preventive maintenance contracts, filter replacement, coil cleaning, controls calibration, and non-capital repairs.
Benchmarks per SF
Source: BOMA EER / IREM 2024
Typical GL Codes
Recoverable Components
- Preventive maintenance contracts
- Filter replacement
- Coil cleaning
- Belt and motor replacement (non-capital)
- Controls calibration and BMS maintenance
- Refrigerant recharging
Non-Recoverable Components
- HVAC system replacement (capital)
- Chiller or boiler replacement (capital)
- Rooftop unit replacement (capital)
- Initial system commissioning
Allocation Method
Pro-rata by rentable square footage for base building HVAC maintenance. Subject to gross-up: HVAC maintenance costs increase with occupancy (more runtime hours, faster filter fouling, higher demand on chillers). After-hours HVAC is typically billed directly to requesting tenants, not through CAM.
Common Lease Language
“Operating Expenses shall include all costs of maintaining, repairing, and operating the Building's heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems, exclusive of capital replacements which shall be amortized over their useful life as permitted herein.”
Common Billing Errors
- Including HVAC replacement costs (capital) in operating expenses without proper amortization
- Failing to gross up HVAC maintenance when occupancy is low
- Charging after-hours HVAC through CAM instead of directly to the requesting tenant
- Including tenant-specific supplemental HVAC maintenance in the common CAM pool
Year-over-Year Trends
HVAC maintenance costs have risen 5-8% annually due to technician labor shortages, refrigerant regulation (HFC phase-down), and aging building systems. The transition from R-22 to newer refrigerants has increased costs for older systems. Smart building and IoT monitoring are reducing emergency repair costs through predictive maintenance.
Audit Flags for HVAC Maintenance
Review this category before tenant statements go out when the GL activity, lease language, or benchmark range moves out of pattern.
- Compare current-year spend to prior-year actuals and budget by account.
- Separate contract base charges from one-time repairs, credits, and late invoices.
- Check whether the lease treats this category as controllable, non-controllable, or excluded.
- Verify that direct tenant charges are not also included in the shared CAM pool.
- Retain invoices for material variances in the audit support package.
Additional Context
HVAC is the most technically complex CAM category and the most common source of capital-vs-operating disputes. Landlords must carefully distinguish between maintenance (operating) and replacement (capital). Many leases allow amortization of capital HVAC expenditures over useful life, effectively smoothing major replacements into annual operating expenses.
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