In today's market, assessors consistently use the wrong approach when assessing the Fair Market Value of a golf course
In today’s competitive business climate, companies need to operate efficiently and economically, keeping a watchful eye on the bottom line. Yet, 85% to 90% of commercial leases in the United States include rent and rent related clauses that are incorrectly calculated year after year. The result can be hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars, depending on the number, sizes and lengths of these leases.
Even companies with top-notch corporate real estate teams find they lose significant money through billing errors related to miscalculated cost escalations, allocations, construction overruns, personal property taxes and real estate property taxes. These miscalculations can add up to six-figure mistakes over the course of one or more years.
Errors are often not attributed to bad-faith or incompetence, they occur due to a lack of time and attention to these costs and fees simply because real estate professionals find they have other pressing matters to attend to on a daily basis. As a result, companies overpay millions of dollars in unnecessary rent payments and associated expenses every year. Imagine these overcharges compounded over a five to ten year lease term. Add to this miscalculated personal property taxes on an annual basis. The cumulative financial losses can be staggering.
These experts bring their respective knowledge, experience, and professional contacts to bear on behalf of our clients to identify and rectify these real estate miscalculations. Furthermore, we create and negotiate long-term solutions to ensure these discrepancies do not reoccur, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential future losses.
Founded more than 20 years ago, Real Estate Auditing Services, Inc. is made up of corporate real estate and financial executives who recognize the need for objective, comprehensive, expert real estate auditing services. With more than 100 years of combined real estate and auditing experience, our team of seasoned professionals today includes:
Accountants & Tax Experts
Lawyers
Corporate Real Estate Managers
Electrical Engineers
Architects
IT Experts
Commercial Lease Audits – Office & Retail
Building and maintaining a successful and cooperative landlord-tenant relationship is important to any company or firm. At REAS, we respect this relationship and view a commercial lease audit not as a nuisance to the landlord, but as a way to strengthen the landlord-tenant relationship for the long run. This effort yields a stronger landlord-tenant relationship built on trust and cooperation. The result is a win-win – a more economical operation for the tenant (our client), and a more effective tenant retention program for the landlord.
Construction Audits-
Overruns and invalid charges are more the rule than the exception for most construction projects. These unnecessary expenses tend to be even more insidious and hidden in a not-to-exceed contract. Through our construction auditing and cost segregation services, our team reviews all pertinent contracts, architectural drawings and site plans, AIA schedules, applications for payment, change orders, comparing and cross-checking them against the Contractor’s general ledger, the project schedule timeline, and copies of all bids, including final contracts. We then provide you with a detailed report of all work performed, our findings, and our conclusions as a result of the audit process. Finally, we coordinate communication of any audit issues with the General Contractor, expediting recovery of any amounts owed to Client from General Contractor, and providing post settlement support.
Property Tax Analysis-
Our Property Tax Audit service defines the lowest and most accurate assessment of your real estate tax, allowing our team to prepare an effective case for property tax reductions – in the current year and for years to come. Not only do we analyze your property in terms of hard costs, site improvements, land values, and building costs, we also review the assessor’s work cards, examining calculations, and assumptions to ensure no mistakes were made in their valuation methodology. This effort can save tens of thousands of dollars each year.
Personal Property Tax Audits-
Proper identification and categorizing of personal property within a company is an art for which few corporate teams have the time or capacity to manage. Constant change in tax laws and allowed deductions, as well as the sheer volume of legitimate personal property items, adds to the challenge of effectively identifying, categorizing, and declaring personal property to optimize deductions and achieve maximum tax savings. REAS’ proprietary personal property tax audit services does just that for our clients, allowing them to achieve savings and recapture funds that have long been lost in the shuffle of everyday corporate finance. This unique service, provided on a contingency basis, is one that many of our clients now find an invaluable part of their on-going fiscal management system.
Due Diligence for Asset Sales & Acquisitions-
Although virtually all commercial real estate sales include a financial pro forma for the property in question, our clients find that the REAS due diligence services provide an invaluable extra layer of protection needed in these large real estate transactions. This service is designed to protect our clients and their financial resources, whether they are the buyer or the seller in any given transaction.
