We bought a villa on a comunidad in Tenerife 8 years ago, the villa had like a number of other villas on the site a porch at the front.

Before purchasing the property and because we were aware that the Comunidad had at some time in the past changed its rule about the addition of porches to the villas we contacted the Administrator to check that the porch attached to our villa had been approved by the President and Committee and that there were no outstanding issues in relation to its construction, we were told that the porch had been approved many years previously and that everything was in order for us to complete our purchase.

There has recently been a suggestion by the President that the community should now commence charging a rental for the areas taken up by these porches (which strictly are on shared community property, though actually part of the front gardens and not directly on any walkways or paths used by other owners.

The question I have is fairly obvious can the community no retrospectively impose a rental charge for these additions, I should say at this stage that as far as I am aware none of the owners has attempted to make changes to their escrituras to reflect the new additions, in fact I guess this would be very difficult if not impossible.

There are further meeting on this subject next week and I would much appreciate any information, particularly in regards to 1) is it legal 2) how would any rent be calculated would it for example be an addition to the quota for the villa that would be reflected in higher community charges 3) are there any time limits after which retrospective action of this nature would be prevented.