A provision included in certain real estate partnership agreements, whereby a special distribution tier is included in the equity waterfall that allows for the general partner (GP) to “catch up” with the limited partner’s (LP) cash flow distributions. The reason for why the general partner’s distributions might lag, or the amount that must be made up with the “catch up” tier,  depends on the terms of the partnership structure.

Catch up provisions are most common to structures where the limited partner receives 100% of distributions until it achieves some preferred return requirement, at which point the GP receives 100% of excess cash flow thereafter until some equitable balance between the LP and GP distributions is achieved.

For example, imagine a limited partner contributes 100% of required capital to a real estate venture in return for a 12% preferred return and 50% of all excess cash flows above that threshold. The agreement states that the limited partner will receive 100% of all cash distributions until it has earned a 12% internal rate of return, at which point the GP receives 100% of cash distributions until both partners have received 50% of profit distributions. Once the GP has caught up with the LP, both partners receive any remaining excess cash flow 50/50.