Prince Andrew is reportedly in advanced talks with King Charles’s senior aides over moving out of his Royal Lodge home after a week in which his “peppercorn” rent tenancy has come under scrutiny.
Pressure has mounted on the royal family for Andrew to vacate the 30-room mansion in Windsor Great Park amid the continuing controversy over his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the posthumous publication of the memoirs of the prince’s sexual assault accuser Virginia Giuffre.
The Public Accounts Committee has confirmed it is writing to the crown estate and the Treasury after it emerged Andrew paid £1m for the lease of the property in 2003, and was required to undertake £7.5m refurbishment costs, but that he has since paid “one peppercorn” of rent if demanded per year.
Buckingham Palace is trying to ramp up pressure on the prince to voluntarily give up the residence, which he cannot be evicted from due to a “cast iron” lease with the Crown Estate. Discussions over his living arrangements have been held daily since the revelations earlier this week, the Telegraph reported.
While Andrew’s initial response has been to dig his heels in, saying he is entitled to live there until the end of the lease in 2078, negotiations are continuing with a growing sense of inevitability that he will now move out, the paper said. Royal sources had seen a “renewed determination” to force him out, it added.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on the report.
Downing Street said on Thursday that MPs will not be given time in the House of Commons time to discuss Andrew’s situation because the royal family wished parliament to focus on “important issues”.
Charles is understood to have tried to persuade his brother for some time to move. Should he be forced out of Royal Lodge, under the terms of the lease he would be entitled to £558,000.
There is also the question of where he, and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson who also resides there, would go. It is also not known how he would pay rent as it is unclear how he derives income, and the king is understood to have withdrawn financial support last year.
The royal family sought to draw a line under the Epstein controversy when Andrew announced last week he would voluntarily relinquish use of his titles and honours, including that of Duke of York. They would be extant but inactive. But there have been calls for them to be removed altogether, which would require legislation.
His announcement came after he consulted with the king and the Prince of Wales when it emerged he had emailed Epstein in 2011 saying “we’re in this together” three months after he said he had broken off all contact with the disgraced US financier.
It also came just days after the publication of Giuffre’s memoir, Nobody’s Girl, in which she repeated her allegations she was forced to have sex three times with Andrew, which he vehemently denies, including when she was 17 and also during an orgy after she was trafficked by Epstein. Andrew paid millions to settle a civil assault case with her in 2022 with no admission of liability. Giuffre died by suicide aged 41 in April.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.theguardian.com ’
