Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is unlikely to receive any compensation upon leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor, according to information published by the Public Accounts Committee, reported BBC.
As part of his leasing arrangement, Andrew could have been entitled to £488,000 for an early surrender of his 75-year lease.
But a report from the Crown Estate for MPs on the public spending watchdog says that the property is so dilapidated and in need of repairs that in “all likelihood” Andrew “will not be owed any compensation”. There will now be an MPs’ inquiry launched into the Crown Estate and its royal leases, says committee chair, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown.
He said the information from the Crown Estate “clearly forms the beginnings of a basis for an inquiry” which will begin next year and will consider the Crown Estate and property leases with the Royal Family. It is not known yet whether Andrew will be called to give evidence.
The information supplied by the Crown Estate also showed Andrew handed in his notice on the property on October 30, the day it had been announced he had lost his titles. He gave a year’s notice, so could stay for another 10 months, but it has been expected that he will move from Royal Lodge to Sandringham in Norfolk early next year.
There was also evidence that Andrew still had a lease on part of his former home at Sunninghill Park in Berkshire, with the Crown Estate saying he was still the leaseholder of East Lodge, which has a separate lease from the main house, which Andrew sold in 2007.
The East Lodge was said by the Crown Estate to have been leased by Andrew for a “member of staff”. MPs on the cross-party committee had wanted to know the details of Andrew’s financial arrangements for Royal Lodge and whether taxpayers’ interests had been properly protected.
Andrew had taken on a 75-year lease of Royal Lodge in 2003, paying over £8.5m up-front to cover renovation costs and paying in advance to remove any requirement for rent, based on a notional rent of £260,000 per year.
There was also a token “peppercorn” payment, which the Crown Estate notes is standard practice for long leases, where there’s an ad
