Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s deal with the Royal Lodge was first made public as he and Sarah Ferguson prepared to leave the Windsor property.
Andrew submitted the required minimum 12 months’ notice to vacate the property on October 30.
The 25-page document from Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee delves into the details of Andrew’s lease. The filing, dated Aug. 8, 2003, shows who the deal is with, how long it lasts and to whom the lease would have been passed.
The document was signed “between the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty (1), the Crown Estate Commission (2) [and] HRH The Duke of York (Andrew’s former title before he was officially stripped of it in October).”
The agreement, lasting 75 years, began on June 16, 2003 and was due to expire on June 15, 2078, until the interjection of King Charles.
If the lease had been abandoned, an “acceptable assignee” would have been passed: “the widow of HRH The Duke of York, or Princess Beatrice, or Princess Eugenie, or the trustees of a trust which has no beneficiaries other than Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie or one of them.” »
The lease contains details of the ‘Tenant’s Right to Exit’, stating: ‘If at any time during the term of the Lease the Tenant wishes to renounce this Lease, the Tenant must serve the Tenant’s Notice on the Landlord.
The lengthy document comes as Ferguson is looking for a new home while Andrew prepares to leave Royal Lodge without receiving a financial settlement.
The Crown Estate has informed MPs that necessary repairs to the 30-bedroom property will almost certainly wipe out any money owed to the former tenant.
Without the need for end of tenancy works, Andrew would have owed £488,342.21 after leaving the residence on October 30, 2026.
However, the preliminary opinion of the estate administration indicates that the cost of repairing the dilapidations will effectively cancel this potential payment in the event of early renunciation of the lease.
“Our initial assessment is that although the extent of the dilapidations at the end of the tenancy and the repairs required are not inconsistent with a tenancy of this duration, they will in all likelihood mean that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor will not be owed any compensation for early termination of the lease once the dilapidations have been taken into account,” the Crown Estate said in its briefing to parliamentarians.
Andrew submitted the required minimum 12 months’ notice to vacate the property on October 30. It follows confirmation that King Charles had ordered the removal of two prestigious honors previously bestowed on his brother.
Details of the former prince’s living conditions have come under scrutiny as controversy continues over his links to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A scandal which was revived by new allegations of sexual abuse contained in the posthumously published memoirs of Virginia Giuffre. While Andrew has always denied the allegations.
