Prince Andrew — who recently gave up his title as the Duke of York amid ongoing accusations connecting him to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — has been living rent-free in his 30-room Royal Lodge home in Windsor for more than two decades.
According to The Times, which obtained a copy of the leasehold agreement for Royal Lodge, Andrew paid £1 million for the lease, plus at least £7.5 million for refurbishments completed in 2005. He has paid “one peppercorn (if demanded)” in rent per year since 2003, the outlet reported.
He and his family, including Sarah Ferguson, are entitled to live in the property until 2078.
If Prince Andrew were to give up his lease early, however, the British newspaper reported that The Crown Estate would owe him a “compensatory sum” of about £185,865 per year — totaling more than £557,595 — until the 25-year agreement is up in 2028.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Buckingham Palace for comment.
While the public feels “outraged” over the circumstances, it’s “highly” doubtful the disgraced royal can be evicted, according to royal experts.
“There is tremendous public disgust regarding his living basically rent-free for 22 years,” royal expert Hilary Fordwich told Fox News Digital. “But that lease was from his mother, and it runs for an extensive period of time. Highly doubt he can legally be evicted. My prediction is that he will receive such an immense pressure because the monarchy will see the public outrage, and he will be pressured by Prince William to leave. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him end up somewhere in the Middle East.”
“People feel outraged, but the Crown Estate is independent,” royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams added. “The lease gives him 75 years. He has paid £1 million for the lease and £7.5 million for repairs. Providing he can fulfill its terms, which involve refurbishing it periodically, he cannot, legally be evicted despite the terrible optics of him and Sarah Ferguson living in a 30-room mansion, both of them in disgrace, in Windsor.”
“They could go to Abu Dhabi or to Switzerland,” Fitzwilliams said. “Since he no longer gives him an allowance or funds his security and the Palace has not acted for him since his disgrace in 2019, there are no levers the king, who wants him to downsize to Frogmore Cottage, can use to enforce this.”
If they are forced to leave Royal Lodge, said royal expert Ian Pelham Turner, Andrew and Ferguson won’t have a problem settling somewhere else.
“If, and it is a big if, Andrew and Sarah are forced to leave Royal Lodge, there are many wealthy people with suitable empty property who can support them both in the U.K., Portugal with their daughter and potentially the Middle East. My feeling is that the King will find suitable accommodation and the whole deal will be kept secret.”
The Sunday Times previously reported that Andrew raised enough money to live in Royal Lodge. The estate is worth a reported $38 million. According to the outlet, the prince’s funds were approved by the Keeper of the Privy Purse as coming from “legitimate sources.”
Last year, the Mail on Sunday’s editor-at-large, Charlotte Griffiths, claimed that King Charles was the secret source who paid Andrew’s rent, allowing him to stay at his palatial Royal Lodge home.
Ingrid Seward, editor-in-chief of Majesty magazine and author of “My Mother and I,” agreed with Griffiths’ scoop. Buckingham Palace didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment at the time.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that Charles is the one who is providing the money for Andrew because the [late] queen wouldn’t have left Andrew bereft,” Seward explained to Fox News Digital.
“She would’ve made a provision for him, and maybe that provision came through his elder brother as monarch,” she shared. “When the king dies or the queen dies, the money goes to the next monarch. Everything goes to the next monarch. So, she either would have made provisions for Andrew before she died, or she would’ve made provisions through Charles.”
“I believe that Charles is helping him,” Seward continued. “I don’t see who else would. I’m sure [Andrew’s ex-wife] Fergie would help him. I know Fergie does very well with her books, but I [can’t] imagine she would make enough to run Royal Lodge on her own.”
“… I certainly think that the only person who could really be doing this is either monies from the queen or monies from the king,” she said.
Griffiths claimed that, according to “multiple sources,” the king “has personally cleared his errant brother’s bills for his upkeep and promised his Royal Lodge woes would be taken care of, enabling him to stay there for the foreseeable future.”
In the wake of Virginia Giuffre’s claims that she was forced to have multiple sexual encounters with Andrew after being sex-trafficked by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell as a teenager, her family has called on King Charles to strip the disgraced royal of his last remaining title.
Ahead of the release of his sister’s posthumous memoir, “Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice,” Giuffre’s brother, Sky Roberts, and his wife, Amanda, expressed their wishes during an appearance on ITV’s “This Morning.”
“I think we need to reopen investigations,” he said. “I think the U.K., law enforcement have documentation that supports being able to bring people to justice. Including Prince Andrew. And I do believe that just because you have the word ‘Prince’ in front of your name, doesn’t mean there is a different set of laws for you.”
“Everybody needs to be held to the same standard, and to that account, because I truly do believe that if Prince wasn’t in front of his name, that he would be behind bars right now, truthfully,” he said.
On Friday, Andrew released a statement as excerpts from Giuffre’s book began to surface. The statement was issued through Buckingham Palace.
“In discussion with The King, and my immediate and wider family, we have concluded the continued accusations about me distract from the work of His Majesty and the Royal Family,” Andrew’s statement read. “I have decided, as I always have, to put my duty to my family and country first. I stand by my decision five years ago to stand back from public life.”
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“With His Majesty’s agreement, we feel I must now go a step further,” the statement continued. “I will therefore no longer use my title or the honours which have been conferred upon me. As I have said previously, I vigorously deny the accusations against me.”
In 2021, Giuffre filed a sexual abuse lawsuit in New York against Andrew, who denied all allegations. The royal claimed he never met her and that the photo of them together might be fake.
In 2022, he settled with Giuffre for an undisclosed sum, agreeing to make a “substantial donation” to her survivors’ organization. British media, including The Telegraph, reported amounts for the settlement ranged from $6 million to $16 million.
Fox News Digital’s Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.
