A fresh royal rent scandal has emerged, centring on the Duke of York, Prince Andrew, who is alleged to have saved up to £3.1 million by paying a nominal 'peppercorn rent' for a luxurious apartment used by his daughters. An investigation by The Mail on Sunday has uncovered that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor rented a four-bedroom flat within St James's Palace for his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, for a fraction of its market value.
The St James's Palace Arrangement
The revelations show that from 2008, Andrew paid just £1,600 a month for the elegant apartment, which had been refurbished with £250,000 of taxpayers' money. In stark contrast, a similarly sized flat within the same palace, Apartment 29A, was offered on the open market in 2015 for £20,000 a month, or £240,000 a year. This means the disgraced royal paid less than £20,000 annually for a property worth over twelve times that amount to the Crown's coffers.
Over the 14 years his daughters resided there, calculations suggest the favourable terms may have resulted in total savings of up to £3.1 million. It is understood that flats like 29A, situated outside the palace's security cordon, can command higher commercial rents.
A Pattern of Favourable Deals Under Scrutiny
This is the second major rent controversy to engulf the 65-year-old duke. It follows previous disclosures that he lived rent-free for two decades in the 30-room Royal Lodge on the Windsor Estate. That arrangement involved a £1 million lump sum for a 75-year lease, with a requirement to pay just 'one peppercorn (if demanded)' per year—a symbolic term meaning effectively no rent.
These deals are now set to be examined by a cross-party committee of MPs. The Public Accounts Committee inquiry, launched last week, will probe all lease arrangements for properties within the Crown Estate. This wide-ranging investigation will not only cover Andrew's deals but also the market rent reportedly paid by the Prince and Princess of Wales for their Adelaide Cottage home, and the rent-free arrangement Prince Edward and Sophie have at Bagshot Park, for which they paid £5 million upfront in 2007. It will also look into the £225 monthly rent paid by the Queen's cousin, Princess Alexandra, for a home in Richmond.
Calls for Transparency and a Wider Probe
Former Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, author of 'Royal Mint, National Debt', has insisted the inquiry must be broadened. "The royals are constantly underpaying what they should do," he stated. "They deliberately make their dealings obscure and have largely exempted themselves from Freedom of Information requests so we can’t find out how much all this is costing the taxpayer."
Mr Baker added: "The public accounts committee needs to go much wider than the inquiry into Royal Lodge. They need to look at the whole business of the Royal Family’s property portfolio, what they own and what they pay." A Palace spokesman said they could not comment on individual rents.
The mounting scrutiny places renewed focus on the financial privileges and opaque property dealings within the royal household, prompting demands for greater accountability and transparency regarding the use of publicly-owned assets.
