There have been calls to evict Prince Andrew from his 30-room mansion, the Royal Lodge, after it was reported that he has not paid rent on it for two decades.
Why does he not pay rent ?
Andrew has leased the Royal Lodge from the UK state’s property empire, the crown estate, since 2003. As part of this deal, he pays the crown estate rent of “one peppercorn (if demanded) per annum”. This is a historical term and does not mean he pays an actual peppercorn. This formulation of words helps to make the lease agreement a legal contract, but it is just symbolic. In reality, he pays no rent.
Has Andrew paid anything to live there?
Yes. He was required to spend £7.5m on refurbishing the property as part of the original 2003 agreement with the crown estate. He also made a one-off payment of £1m to lease the property for 75 years. The terms of the deal, including the peppercorn rent, were set out in a 2005 report by the National Audit Office, the official public spending watchdog.
There has been persistent criticism that he has got a very favourable deal. The crown estate denies this. It concluded that a member of the royal family needed to live in the property because of its “sensitive location” within Windsor Great Park as well as “security concerns” about the family’s access to the private Royal Chapel, which lies within the boundary of the Royal Lodge.
For these two reasons, the crown estate decided not to lease the property on the open market. It hired property experts to evaluate the agreement before it was struck in 2003. They concluded that the deal was “appropriate”, particularly as the “security concerns” would have hindered the crown estate from being able to lease it to a private individual at a market rate.
What happens if Andrew is actually evicted from the Royal Lodge ?
The problem for those who believe he should be evicted is that he possesses a legal contract entitling him to live there. If there was sufficient political or moral pressure to make him leave the mansion, the crown estate would have to pay him compensation for each year he was prevented from living there during the first 25 years of the contract.
This would be until 2028 – so if he gave up the lease now, he would receive a sum of £558,000. Government insiders say they will be guided by the royal family on what should happen to the Royal Lodge, but admit it is possible that taxpayers will have to pay to buy Andrew out should the family decide that is the best course of action.
Do other royals have similar deals?
Yes. Prince Edward lives in a mansion at Bagshot Park, which is also within Windsor Great Park. Since 2007, he, too, has had a peppercorn rent while leasing it from the crown estate. When he first moved there in 1998, his rent on the lease was £90,000 a year. He also paid £1.3m towards renovation costs. The deal was renegotiated in 2007, when he paid £5m to secure the lease, but he was required to pay only a peppercorn rent from then on.
