Prince Andrew has paid no rent on Royal Lodge for more than 20 years
According to the lease published by The Crown Estate, Prince Andrew has been paying ‘pepper’ rent to the Royal Lodge for two decades.
The agreement states that the scandal-plagued prince has only paid one cape a year (if requested) since 2003, despite paying £1 million for rent and at least £7.5 million for renovations in 2005.
Release of the sent rental agreement IndependentFollowing calls for transparency over the royal residence, another week of scandal has focused on Andrew’s 75-year lease of the 30-bedroom Royal Lodge in Windsor.
The Crown has announced that he will no longer be known as the Duke of York following ongoing accusations regarding his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein; Excerpts from Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoirs contain further claims that they had sex three times.
Prince Andrew, who has always staunchly denied the allegations involving Ms Giuffre, lives at Royal Lodge, which sits on 98 acres in Windsor Great Park and is rented from the Crown Estate.
On Monday, there were demands among some MPs for parliament to remove his titles, while pressure on the Estate to provide more information about the lease increased as calls for the estate agent to move grew.
Royal author and former Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker said details of the contract should be made public to see whether he was likely to be sacked.
he said Times: “All leases have some sort of termination clause, so the public should know how he was able to stay there and the terms on which he might be forced to leave.”
Speaking to the same publication, royal writer Andrew Lownie said: “I think it is important for transparency that the full details of this arrangement are made public and why the property (essentially public property) is only being offered to him.”
In response to an inquiry on the matter, The Crown Estate sent: Independent A copy of the 2003 lease under which Andrew paid £1 million and was required to carry out £7.5 million worth of renovations to the Grade II listed property.
The contract states that if any rent is not paid for 21 days or there is any breach of the tenant agreement, the contract may be terminated by the Site.
The document also states that the tenant must maintain and maintain the premises in good and proper order and that the building must be repainted every five years. The Crown Estate also has the right to conduct an inspection “upon reasonable notice”.
Some details about the deal were already known through the National Audit Office (NAO). report In 2005, it was stated that the decision to lease was made because it was “appropriate given the overriding need to maintain close management control over the Royal Lodge”.
The report stated that Andrew applied to the Crown Estate for the property following the death of the late Queen Elizabeth’s mother.
Over the weekend, former royal correspondent Jennie Bond told the BBC that Prince Andrew had made a “cast iron” deal to stay at the Royal Lodge.
He said: “He’s got a pretty solid lease if he’s evicted from the Royal Lodge where he lives, this big house in Windsor, and it’s difficult, the King is trying to get him out.
“Andrew likes us all to believe that he tends to be extremely honorable. I think the honorable thing would be to say: I’ll give up not only my titles… but also this rather large house. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
The Crown Estate said it had taken the decision to share a copy of the lease on Monday and that the document contained information already available at the Land Registry and in the NAO report.
The only exception was the “devastation plan”, where it attempted to verify whether it could be shared without violating security considerations.
It was stated that the renovation works worth £7.5 million were completed in 2005, as stated in the contract.
