Andrew, Sarah & a Royal Lodge question

[MoondustandFairies]

Following some of the news stories about Andrew relinquishing Titles & a more local news story saying that he & his ex wife will continue to live in the Royal Lodge makes me wonder how that can be funded. Can they be made to leave if they can't pay?

It has 7 - or 12? - bedrooms so I expect it requires a bit of mopping & dusting each week - so do A & S also employ staff to maintain the property.

Not sure how old they both are either, maybe close to retirement?? but how do they fund a lifestyle without being propped up by the RF. Which prob won't please William too.
Just my tuppence worth question wondering how non working ex Royals with no marketable skills will pay staff wages & buy groceries.

I don't know prh47bridge personally but she has been referred to multiple times on the legal forum and on education threads as a respected solicitor.

I haven't seen a Charles portrait in my doctors. However they were one of the buildings/organisations offered them

Really ? Interesting ...where are all the portraits now then?

They were offered, according to the Guardian and other links posted, to 46000 public bodies by the Government, with £8 million put aside to fund it. Uptake was low, and £2.7 million eventually spent. I agree a waste of money, but a Government initiative, not KC3.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-queen-lobbied-for-change-in-law-to-hide-her-private-wealth

I think this ^^ may be the information referred to by jumpingthehighjump ?

I think every poster on here and the editor of the Guardian should say, on here, exactly what their personal wealth amounts to. Let's know all your private business.
I'll start. I have a cash ISA with the Blah Building Society. A cash ISA is a legal way to avoid paying tax, recommended by accountants and the ladies at the B Society.

Yet C3 doesn't appear to have applied any brakes to the notion despite knowing he was succeeding a well-loved royal icon and that his public approval ratings had varied quite wildly over the years.

Police are also not allowed onto royal estates to investigate suspected crimes without the monarch's permission.

Well, the conversations between the PM and HoS are confidential, so none of us know whether it was raised with KC3, and if it was whether he was for it or against it. It was a government - elected government - decision to budget £8 million for the portraits. Scraping the barrel to blame KC3 for it.

As far as a poster who you claim to be a 'respected Mumsnet lawyer' ... are you saying this is someone on the Mumsnet payroll? Or just another poster. I ask this because anyone can be anything on a forum.

This 100%.

I've lost count of the dramatic unmaskings I've seen on forums over the years.

V. entertaining though 😂 🍿

And yet, only recently when it came to stripping Andrew's titles, a No 10 spokesperson insisted that legislation was a matter for the RF in the first instance

FWIW I agree completely about how it's supposed to work; the issue seems to be that in selected cases it doesn't

Scraping the barrel to blame KC3 for it.

Probably.

In much the same way his hands are tied in charging rents to public bodies and charities and he has no agency over handing back the profits I suppose.

The monarch can remove HRH/Prince/ss by letters patent, which is what he has done for Andrew.

Nobility titles, once acquired, can only - I think - be removed by Parliament or rejected by the person concerned within a year of acquiring it (usually by inheritance). This was brought in with the 1963 Peerage Act, because Alec Douglas Home inherited an Earldom but wanted to remain in the House of Commons, and there was no mechanism to refuse a title.

From what I have read Andrew hasn't had the dukedom removed? But isn't using it? All the news sources say he has been 'stripped of his princely titles' but don't specifically say this includes the dukedom, which has different rules.

The Chancellor (administrator) of the Duchy is a government position.

I thought I'd read something that said Charles cancelled the Dukedom or took it off the rolls of Dukedoms or something so that the removal didn't need to go through parliament. Anyone remember?

Yes, you're right. Normally the monarch can't do this because it gives them too much power over land ownership. Usually, Dukedoms come with land and property, however, this one did not, and was a Royal Dukedom in the gift of the late Queen. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had to ensure this about the entail before assenting to it's removal.
Happy to be corrected if that's wrong, but that's how I understand it.

Ok, I'll admit it. I am Spartacus.

I am Spartacus!

@MrsLeonFarrell @MrsEmmelineLucas I understood (had seen reported) that the government and KC3 had found between them a legal way of doing it that didn't require a full act of parliament (and hence parliamentary time). I had previously seen the argument that he could unilaterally remove it because it was a Royal dukedom without land (by an emeritus professor of law - referenced by @TheAutumnCrow), but hadn't seen that reported as the reason.

I've just read this parliamentary briefing and am still confused - it effectively says that it's still not clear how it happened: 'As the 2004 Royal Warrant did not include a unilateral power of removal, it is not yet clear how this has been given effect.'

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10370/

Thanks, @bluegreygreen . As I understand it, the case had been before the Lord Chancellor, and the removal of the Dukedom did not require an Act of Parliament because of the lack of entail, enabling the Chancellor of the D o L to act. I'm not in the legal business, I've just got this from various reports which made sense to me?

@MrsEmmelineLucas that certainly would make sense to me too - I was just surprised not to see it mentioned as the reason in the briefing summary (or really included, apart from a link to a Times letter), hence confused.

Yes, I know what you mean.

Hence all the Acts of Attainder back in the good old days 😉

Quite! Plus Magna Carta - the Barons needed to control what the king was up to!

I'm Spartacus