Andrew gives up lease on Crown Estate property

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is giving up the lease on another Crown Estate property, the BBC understands.

Mountbatten-Windsor has asked to end his lease on East Lodge, near his former home at Sunninghill Park in Berkshire, with documents seen by the BBC showing he has been paying an annual rent of almost £13,000.

Last year the former prince announced he was leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor and moving to Sandringham over his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He has previously denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.

But Mountbatten-Windsor had kept the tenancy of East Lodge, a Grade II-listed cottage located about five miles from Windsor, which is believed to have been used for staff accommodation.

The 19th-Century, single-storey, thatched cottage was the lodge near the much bigger Sunninghill Park, which had been the former Prince Andrew's home until he moved to Royal Lodge in 2004.

The sale of Sunninghill Park in 2007 for £15m was controversial - with the son-in-law of Kazakhstan's president buying it for £3m more than the asking price.

But East Lodge, in a desirable location between Windsor and Ascot, remained as a separate arrangement between the then Duke of York and the Crown Estate - and seems to be another jigsaw piece in his complex finances.

Such royal properties leased by the Crown Estate are going to be under scrutiny from MPs on the Public Accounts Committee, which has announced an inquiry due to begin later this year.

Chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has said the committee's scrutiny of royal leases will "aid transparency in public-interest information, as part of its overall mission to secure value for money for the taxpayer".

Lease documents show that the then Duke of York took on the tenancy of East Lodge in February 1998, paying an initial £3,500 annual rent to the Crown Estate.

There was a provision for the rent to increase with inflation and by the time the tenancy was renewed in 2020, the former Prince Andrew was paying £8,047 per year, in an arrangement that continued more than a decade after the main building at Sunninghill had been sold.

Last summer, the charges were reviewed again and a document from late August shows the rent had risen to £12,922.

Estate agents show rental prices in the same expensive postcode ranging from £2,000 and £7,500 per month for two and three bedroom apartments, with detached houses much higher.

Within a couple of months of renewing the lease at East Lodge, after more public scrutiny of his links to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew was stripped of his titles and he agreed to give up the tenancy on Royal Lodge.

But it seems that he carried on renting East Lodge. The Crown Estate has suggested that the request to end his tenancy came this year following a Freedom of Information request submitted by the BBC in January about the property.

"Since then… we have received a request for us to consider an early termination of the lease," the Crown Estate said.

The latest term of the lease was believed to have been due to end in July 2027.

Mountbatten-Windsor's lease will now be terminated early, but the timetable will depend on arrangements for those living in the house when the former prince ceases to be involved.

With pressure increasing from the release of the Epstein files, Andrew moved from Royal Lodge to Sandringham in Norfolk in February, where he will live in a property owned by King Charles III and without any cost to the public purse.

The Crown Estate is an independent commercial body, whose profits go to the Treasury and which has an obligation to get best value for the public.

The Crown Estate says the day to day occupancy of the property is a private matter, separate to the tenancy - and previous documents have suggested that the lodge has been used by employees of the former Duke of York.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been approached for comment.