Former Prince Andrew made money subletting cottages on his rent-free estate, report shows

LONDON — The former Prince Andrew made money by subletting three cottages on the estate where he lived rent-free for two decades, according to a report on the royal family’s properties released Friday by the U.K. public spending watchdog.

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It also disclosed that his daughters, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie, live in rent-controlled palace properties paid for by their uncle, King Charles III.

The National Audit Office report said Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received income from renting out the cottages on the Royal Lodge estate, his home near Windsor Castle for more than 20 years. A lease for Royal Lodge signed in 2003 shows he paid only a nominal fee known as a “peppercorn rent” for the property, which included a 30-room mansion and eight cottages, three of which he was allowed to sublet.

The amount of income was not included in the report, an omission that Margaret Hodge, a Labour member of the House of Lords and former head of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, said was concerning.

“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.

The audit office review was carried out at the request of lawmakers after Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles and evicted from Royal Lodge by his brother, the king, following revelations about his friendship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor moved earlier this year to the king’s Sandringham Estate in eastern England.

In February, the former prince, 66, was arrested and questioned by police about allegations of misconduct in public office. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, and has not been charged.

The audit office report shows that 11 working royals receive free housing within palaces in return for their official duties. They include 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 also have a family home near Windsor, for which they pay rent of 307,200 pounds (about $413,000) a year.

The rents on Eugenie’s cottage in Kensington Palace and Beatrice’s apartment in St. James’s Palace are set at a portion of open-market value that has ranged in recent years between 50% and 68%. Both rents are paid out of the Privy Purse, the monarch’s private funds.

The pair are not considered “working” royals who carry out public duties, and both have outside jobs.

Buckingham Palace said 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.”

Critics of the monarchy cited the findings as evidence the royal family does not pay its way.

“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 has featured in millions of pages of documents about Epstein released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January, showing how the wealthy financier used an international web of rich, powerful friends to gain influence and sexually exploit young women and girls.

British police are looking into claims that Mountbatten-Windsor sent confidential trade information to the disgraced financier when he served as U.K. trade envoy from 2001 to 2011. Detectives say they may broaden their investigation to include allegations of sexual misconduct and have appealed for witnesses to come forward.

Mountbatten-Windsor has rarely been seen in public since he moved to the Sandringham Estate, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of London. He was photographed Thursday in a car with a large bruise on his face.

The Times of London said, without citing sources, that the bruise was the result of a “nonserious medical condition.”