Parliament’s spending watchdog is set to launch an inquiry into the Crown Estate after revelations about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s ‘peppercorn rent’ at Royal Lodge
An official inquiry has been launched into the Royal Family’s Crown Estate properties after MPs queried why the disgraced ex-Prince Andrew only paid a “peppercorn” rent for his stately home.
Ordinary Andy paid £1million for a 75-year lease of the Grade-II listed Royal Lodge in 2003 and since then paid “one peppercorn” of rent “if demanded” per year.
He is enjoying his last days at the 30-room mansion before he’s booted out to go and live on the King’s private Sandringham estate.
Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, which checks on spending, raised concerns in October over the value for money of Andrew’s living arrangements amid fury over his bargain rent for Royal Lodge.
The committee, dubbed the ‘queen of select committees’, demanded answers from both the Treasury and Crown Estate over Andrew’s lucrative lease. The committee revealed today it would be holding an inquiry into the estate and its leases with other members of the Royal Family.
The inquiry will be based on the contents of the letters from the Crown Estate and Treasury and work from the National Audit Office updating its 2005 report, ‘The Crown Estate – Property Leases with the Royal Family’.
Committee chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown said it would publish responses from The Crown Estate Commissioners and HM Treasury “to aid transparency in public-interest information, as part of its overall mission to secure value for money for the taxpayer”.
“Having reflected on what we have received, the information provided clearly forms the beginnings of a basis for an inquiry,” he said. “We now await the conclusions the NAO [National Audit Office] will draw from this information, and plan to hold an inquiry based on the resulting evidence base in the new year.”
Andrew is unlikely to receive any compensation for giving up his crumbling Royal Lodge home because of all the repairs it will need.
The Crown Estate told MPs on the committee that its initial assessment was that, while “dilapidations and repairs required are not out of keeping with a tenancy of this duration”, Andrew will likely not be owed any compensation for early surrender of the lease “once dilapidations are taken into account.”
The Crown Estate said that “a full and thorough assessment” will be carried out by “an expert in dilapidation”. Andrew gave the minimum 12-month notice that he would surrender the property on October 30.
If no end-of-tenancy repairs were required, Andrew would have been entitled to £488,342.21 for ending his tenancy on October 30, 2026.
Andrew is also set to have his final Christmas at his Royal Lodge mansion in Windsor, before he is turfed out of the property in the new year. He will move to a much smaller property on the King’s private Sandringham estate without his former wife, Sarah Ferguson, who lived with him at Royal Lodge.
When it was announced Andrew would surrender the lease, the move was expected to take place as soon as possible. But the move might be delayed until February, as moving out of such a grand home into a smaller one would take time – and it is unclear if his new home would be ready.
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