Watchdog says Andrew received up to £2,000 a month from Royal Lodge sub-letting

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received up to £2,000 a month from sub-letting three cottages at Royal Lodge while paying no rent himself, a parliamentary watchdog has reported, prompting MPs to recommend tighter rules for Crown Estate leases.

The Public Accounts Committee said he did not rent out all three cottages continuously, so it could not estimate the total income over the more than 20 years he lived at the Windsor property. The money went to Mountbatten-Windsor, not the Crown Estate, which owns Royal Lodge.

He held a 75-year lease from 2003 and paid about £7.5m towards renovations and other charges instead of monthly rent. The Crown Estate told MPs it had no oversight of how much he charged for the cottages, and that his lease allowed sub-letting.

The committee recommends that future leases of Crown Estate properties should ban sub-letting by default, with exceptions requiring the landlord’s agreement.

The report also revisits the end of the lease. Mountbatten-Windsor was due about £300,000 for surrendering it early, but a £1.8m repair bill for the property’s condition meant the Crown Estate was owed £1.5m. King Charles paid that amount on his brother’s behalf, as reported earlier.

The committee also raised concerns about rents charged to non-working royals living in royal properties, saying valuations should be kept up to date and applied more consistently. Its wider inquiry criticised the Crown Estate’s concentration of urban holdings in London and south-east England and the rise in its administration costs.

The Crown Estate said it was considering the report’s findings and recommendations and would respond to the committee in due course.