King Charles is facing renewed calls to disclose how much rental income his brother, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, earned by subletting cottages on the Royal Lodge estate, following a National Audit Office review that found the arrangement had gone undisclosed for years, according to reports and public comments from lawmakers.
The dispute centers on three cottages located on the Royal Lodge grounds in Windsor, which Andrew leased from the Crown Estate under an agreement dating back to 2004. According to the National Audit Office, Andrew directly rented the cottages to tenants and kept the income himself, though the watchdog said it did not have visibility into how much rent he actually charged.
What the audit found
The National Audit Office’s review, part of its first examination of royal residences in two decades, confirmed that Andrew received private rental income from the cottages while paying a below-market rent on the broader Royal Lodge property under his original lease. The audit also noted that the cottages had been sitting vacant since April, following Andrew’s relocation earlier this year to Marsh Farm, a smaller property on the Sandringham estate.
James Chalmers, the King’s Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer, told a parliamentary committee that the Royal Household could obtain and share detailed financial information if Parliament formally requested it, drawing on the same process used in the original NAO review. “What I can say is the role we played with the NAO report, which we can play here, was we gathered the information from the other households, and I believe if the request were made for that information, we could provide it to the National Audit Office and therefore to the committee… We can get it,” Chalmers said.
Calls for transparency from lawmakers
The push for disclosure has drawn support from multiple members of Parliament. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey has called for a select committee inquiry to “properly scrutinise” the Crown Estate’s handling of the Royal Lodge lease, a request Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he supported in principle, telling the House of Commons that proper scrutiny of Crown properties was important.
Baroness Margaret Hodge, who chaired Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee from 2010 to 2015, has been among the most vocal advocates for disclosure. Describing the broader arrangement as looking “like a rotten deal,” Hodge questioned the fairness of Andrew retaining the rental income himself. “Allowing him to make money out of rents, it’s a potential loss to the taxpayer, so we need to know about it,” Hodge said.
Public Accounts Committee chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown formally wrote to the Crown Estate and Treasury seeking additional detail on the arrangement, stating in his letter, “There is considerable and understandable public interest in the spending of public money in relation to Prince Andrew, which in part stems from the fact that he is no longer a working royal and from serious and disturbing allegations made against him.”
What remains unconfirmed
Despite the mounting pressure, King Charles has not announced any plan to release the specific rental figures, and any formal disclosure would still require Parliament to make an official request through the National Audit Office before the information could be made public. Reports citing an unnamed royal source have suggested there is “little appetite” within the Royal Household to withhold the figures if such a formal request is made, but no timeline for that process has been confirmed, and palace officials have not indicated that Charles has already ordered the information released.
Broader context around Andrew’s status
The rental income controversy adds to a lengthy list of financial and reputational challenges facing Andrew, who was stripped of his prince title and the Duke of York designation last year following renewed scrutiny of his past association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Andrew moved out of Royal Lodge and into Marsh Farm on the Sandringham estate earlier this year, ending his occupancy of the Windsor property after roughly two decades. According to the original terms of his Royal Lodge lease, Andrew was entitled to reclaim a portion of an upfront payment if he vacated the property early, with that amount tapering over time; at current rates, that figure was calculated at approximately £186,000 for each remaining year through 2028. When Andrew initially took on the lease, he paid £5 million for renovations, £2.5 million toward rent in advance, and an additional £1 million premium, with a further £2.5 million later spent on renovations, according to figures from the National Audit Office and Crown Estate.
Separately, Andrew was taken into custody in February on suspicion of misconduct in public office, adding a further legal dimension to the broader scrutiny surrounding his affairs.
Wider questions about royal finances
The controversy over Andrew’s rental income has also fed into a broader conversation about transparency in royal financial arrangements more generally. Academic and political commentators have noted that, since the Sovereign Grant Act of 2011, the individual annuities paid to non-working royals are no longer published, making it difficult for the public to fully understand how members of the extended royal family are financially supported. Some observers have suggested that if the Crown Estate is compelled to disclose details of Andrew’s lease, it may face similar pressure to disclose financial arrangements involving other royal family members funded through the Duchy of Lancaster.
For now, the specific amount Andrew earned from subletting the Royal Lodge cottages remains undisclosed. The Royal Household has indicated it is capable of producing the figures if formally requested through Parliament’s established process, but no such request has yet been confirmed as underway. Whether King Charles ultimately authorizes the disclosure, and how Parliament proceeds with its scrutiny of the Crown Estate’s broader property arrangements, are likely to remain open questions in the weeks ahead as lawmakers continue pressing for greater visibility into the finances surrounding Andrew’s residency arrangements.
