Lease Audits: The Essential Guide is an excellent book

"Additional Rent
This term has at least two meanings. There is a broad meaning whereby the term refers to any consideration paid to a landlord under a lease other than the base rent. The second use is to refer to rent mechanisms which permit the landlord to recover from tenants all or some portion of costs expended by landlord in connection with the property, such as recovery of real estate taxes, utilities, CAM and the like.


Audit
This term is most familiar in reference to the verification performed by accountants in their review of their client's financial books and records. It is used in real estate to refer to many different type of analysis, most prevalently, environmental audits. We use it to refer to investigation of charge made under commercial leases.


Boilerplate
Standard contractual language which one commonly encounters in certain contracts is often referred to as boilerplate. The word has a dismissive connotation. When asked to explain technical lease language, landlords' representatives often deflect the inquiry with the response, It's just boilerplate. Courts seldom refuse to enforce language simply because It's just boilerplate. More commonly, courts will enforce boilerplate, thereby suggesting that one should seldom be satisfied with the explanation that any language is just boilerplate.


Cap
This is slang for a limit placed upon liability. For instance a tenant might negotiate a cap on his annual responsibility for additional rent at some amount.


Contingent fee auditor
A person who agrees to perform an audit, without charge, other than possible recovery of expenses, except that the auditor does recover some (often 50%) percentage of the savings realized as a result of his audit."






Lease Audits: The Essential Guide is an excellent book. The author is Theodore Hellmuth, Esq., and it is published by Statelaw Guides, Inc.
"The book categorizes, de-mystifies and provides easy, helpful answers.
Tenants should read it before they draw their next rent check. Landlords should read it before they send their next additional rent bill. Both parties should read it before they work on any type of escalation clause.
Questions which this book answers include:
* What are the common types of error?
* What is the multiplier effect?"

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