Former Prince Andrew, brother of King Charles III, received income for years from cottages he sublet in the royal residence where he himself lived without paying rent, a report from the British auditor revealed on Friday.
Since 2003 and until recently, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, stripped of his titles in 2025 after new revelations about his links with the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, lived in the Royal Lodge residence on the Windsor estate, about thirty km west of London.
To occupy this residence where he cohabited with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, he had initially paid a premium of 1 million pounds, and had undertaken to spend 7.5 million pounds (8.6 million euros) on work, in exchange for a 75-year lease at a so-called symbolic rent, “but which is in reality zero”, according to the report.
“Three cottages on the Royal Lodge estate were sublet”, with “income from this sublet paid to Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor”, who himself did not pay rent to occupy the main 30-room mansion, reveals the National Audit Office report on the terms of occupation of the royal family’s residences.
“We do not know what rent was charged” for the cottages in question, further specifies the auditor. They have been vacant since April.
The opacity surrounding the use of royal residences has sparked debate for years, which was reinforced with the disgrace of ex-Prince Andrew.
The parliamentary committee in charge of public accounts is also due to launch an investigation into royal properties this year.
Andrew is under police investigation for “failure in the exercise of a public function”, suspected of having transmitted confidential economic documents to Jeffrey Epstein when he was the United Kingdom’s trade envoy between 2001 and 2011.
He was briefly arrested in February and police raided Royal Lodge. It has since moved to the king’s private estate at Sandringham in eastern England.
The National Audit Office report also reveals that Andrew’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, who are not working members of the royal family, have apartments in royal palaces in London, the rent of which is paid from the king’s personal income.
For his part, the king’s heir, Prince William, pays more than 300,000 pounds (346,600 euros) in annual rent to occupy the Forest Lodge residence in Windsor, where he moved last year with Princess Kate and their three children.
