Common area maintenance charges (CAM) are one of the net charges billed to tenants in a commercial triple net (NNN) lease, and are paid by tenants to the landlord of a commercial property. A CAM charge is an additional rent, charged on top of base rent, and is mainly composed of maintenance fees for work performed on the common area of a property
Each tenant pays their pro rata share of a property's total CAM charges, which prorated share is the percentage of the tenant's rented square footage of the total, rentable square footage of the property.
A common example of a CAM item is the cost of cleaning the walkways in a shopping mall. It is assumed that every tenant benefits from a clean environment, and should share in that cost. An example of a CAM that is charged to only a subset of tenants might be the charges for cleaning the food court area, where all of the vendors in the court collectively cover the higher cost of cleaning the tables on a frequent schedule.