UK’s spending watchdog shines light on royals and their properties

[LONDON] King Charles’ disgraced younger brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor held leases for 10 properties – three of which he sublet – while the monarch pays rent for the former prince’s daughters’ palace homes, a report by the UK’s spending watchdog said.

In the most detailed review yet of royal property arrangements, the National Audit Office (NAO) on Friday (Jun 5) revealed that some leases were based on commercial valuations.

Meanwhile, for others, senior figures paid no rent or negligible amounts for their properties.

The watchdog carried out its analysis after the UK parliament’s Public Accounts Committee said last December it would hold an inquiry into the issue.

This was amid questions about the lease Mountbatten-Windsor held for the Royal Lodge mansion on the king’s Windsor estate.

The king has since forced his brother to move out of his home and stripped him of all his titles over his ties to the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The issue has been seized on by the monarchy’s critics, who increasingly question their wealth.

“We hope that the findings will help correct, clarify or contextualise a number of points regarding royal properties,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s property deals

The NAO said it had examined the property agreements the family had with the Royal Household and The Crown Estate.

It is a vast property portfolio belonging to the monarchy. However, it is independently run, with all its profits going to the Treasury.

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The spending watchdog offered no opinion on whether the deals represented good value for money for taxpayers.

Under a deal struck in 2003, Mountbatten-Windsor obtained a 75-year lease for Royal Lodge in return for a £1 million (S$1.7 million) upfront payment and a commitment to perform £7.5 million in renovations, which he duly carried out.

Thereafter, he paid a peppercorn rent – effectively nothing – for the mansion and the eight cottages on its 40-hectare (ha) estate.

He sublet and kept the rent for three of the cottages, which only became unoccupied in April.

Neither the NAO nor The Crown Estate, an independent commercial business, had details on that income.

Mountbatten-Windsor paid £12,922 a year for another property, Sunninghill Park in Windsor, which was used by a member of his staff. That lease will end in July next year.

A spokesperson for The Crown Estate said leases with members of the royal family were “in line with independent, professional advice and open market valuations”.

King Charles pays for Beatrice and Eugenie

The NAO report also showed that the Royal Household provided seven official residences at Kensington Palace and St James’ Palace at no charge for royals who carried out public duties, such as Prince William and the king’s sister Princess Anne, in a longstanding deal in return for their official work.

Three “non-working” royals – Mountbatten-Windsor’s daughters, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, and the Duke of Kent, the king’s first cousin once removed – paid a rent set at 60 per cent of the open market.

It reflects the fact only a limited number of people would be able to live in such premises for security reasons.

However, the NAO found that the king was paying their rents out of the “Privy Purse”, the sovereign’s private finances, and that the rents set had not always matched the 60 per cent valuation.

Buckingham Palace said residences had to be filled “depending on their location, tenants and purpose”.

Among its other findings, the NAO said William and his wife Kate were paying £307,200 a year to The Crown Estate in rent for their new home Forest Lodge, along with £19,800 a year for a staff property.

While the royals paid for internal refurbishment, The Crown Estate had paid £400,000 for repairs before they moved in.

Prince Edward, the king’s youngest brother, had paid a £5 million premium in 2007 along with £1.38 million for renovations for a 150-year lease on Bagshot Park – a mansion to the west of London with 21 ha of grounds.

He paid a peppercorn rent and was also able to sublet properties on the estate, the report said.

While detailed, the NAO report did not look at properties owned by the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, which are large estates providing income directly to the king and Prince William.

It also did not look into the king’s private estates such as Sandringham in eastern England, or Balmoral Castle in Scotland. REUTERS