LONDON (AP) — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor generated income by subletting three cottages located on an estate where he resided without paying rent for twenty years, a British government spending oversight report revealed Friday.
The National Audit Office document also revealed that his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, reside in palace properties with controlled rents that are covered by their uncle, King Charles III.
According to the audit office findings, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor earned money from leasing the cottages situated on the Royal Lodge property, where he lived near Windsor Castle for more than two decades. Documentation from a 2003 lease agreement indicates he paid only a token amount called a “peppercorn rent” for the estate, which contained a mansion with 30 rooms and eight cottages, with permission to sublet three of them.
The report did not specify the rental income amount, an exclusion that Margaret Hodge, a Labour member of the House of Lords and former head of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, found troubling.
“It’s shocking that the National Audit Office was not able to establish how much money Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor secured from the properties he let,” she said.
Lawmakers requested the audit office investigation after Mountbatten-Windsor lost his royal titles and was removed from Royal Lodge by his brother, the king, due to revelations regarding his association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor relocated this year to the king’s Sandringham Estate in eastern England.
In February, the 66-year-old former prince was detained and questioned by authorities regarding allegations of misconduct in public office. Mountbatten-Windsor has consistently denied any wrongdoing and faces no charges.
The audit office findings indicate that 11 working royals receive complimentary housing in palaces as compensation for their official responsibilities. This group includes the king and Queen Camilla, Prince William and his wife Catherine, and the king’s youngest brother, Prince Edward, and his wife Sophie.
William and Kate maintain a separate family residence near Windsor, paying annual rent of 307,200 pounds (approximately $413,000).
Eugenie’s cottage rent at Kensington Palace and Beatrice’s apartment rent at St. James’s Palace are calculated as a percentage of market value, ranging between 50% and 68% in recent years. The Privy Purse, the monarch’s personal funds, covers both rental payments.
Neither daughter is classified as a “working” royal with public responsibilities, and both maintain employment outside the royal family.
Buckingham Palace stated the audit office report “is in line with the royal household’s commitment to transparency. We hope that the findings will help correct, clarify or contextualize a number of points regarding royal properties.”
Monarchy critics pointed to these discoveries as proof the royal family fails to cover its expenses.
“It shows an absolute total contempt for the taxpayer, not only that Andrew was able to have a peppercorn rent for a gigantic property, but then to make potentially millions on the side from subletting properties,” said former Liberal Democrat lawmaker Norman Baker, a longtime critic of royal finances.
Mountbatten-Windsor appears in millions of pages of Epstein-related documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January, demonstrating how the wealthy financier leveraged an international network of influential contacts to gain power and sexually exploit young women and girls.
British authorities are investigating allegations that Mountbatten-Windsor shared confidential trade information with the disgraced financier during his tenure as U.K. trade envoy from 2001 to 2011. Investigators indicate they may expand their probe to include sexual misconduct allegations and have requested witnesses to step forward.
Mountbatten-Windsor has seldom appeared publicly since relocating to the Sandringham Estate, located about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London. He was photographed Thursday in a vehicle displaying a large facial bruise.
The Times of London reported, without naming sources, that the bruise resulted from a “nonserious medical condition.”
