Correcting landlord billing errors requires specialized skills. To find errors, you must have accounting expertise as well as in-depth legal knowledge of lease clauses, of how your building operates and of how your landlord computes bills for its tenants.  Unless you have a block of concentrated time and extensive resources, you will not be able to identify errors other than the most obvious ones.

In addition, to convince your landlord that the errors must be corrected, and do so without adversely affecting your relationship, you also need very effective communication and negotiation skills. Unless you know how to communicate with your landlord’s accountants at their level, you will not be able to retrieve your overpayments.

Using a third-party lease audit firm significantly increases the amount of savings achieved and simultaneously reduces the potential for tension in this area.

For a more detailed discussion on what to look for in a lease audit firm, please see KBA’s Lease Tip, Criteria for Selecting a Lease Audit Firm.