So how come Prince Edward is paying a peppercorn rent as well?

[Ragsandwhathaveyou972]

Can someone help me properly understand this please?

For years I have wondered aloud on here, under various nns, how Prince Edward can afford to live in a £30 million mansion when by all accounts his income is roughly £150,000 per year? Just because it didn’t seem fair!

Full disclosure: I have nothing against the Royals themselves but I would prefer a much slimmed down monarchy and eventually after many years, an elected Head of State.

And the official explanation seemed to be that as he is privately wealthy, he is putting funds in to renovate the property in exchange for a much reduced rent.

https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/870243/prince-edwards-peppercorn-rent-revealed/?viewas=amp

So initially, Edward seemed to pay a market rate rent of £5,000, which increased to £90,000 after he paid £1.36 million for renovations.

However, he later secured a 150-year lease extension in 2007 by paying £5 million upfront, and since then, he has been paying a "peppercorn" (a very nominal amount) rent presumably in exchange for keeping it in good nick?

Fair enough you might think. He is privately wealthy and the cost of renovating somewhere that size has to be enormous.

However, what I am really confused about now is the Crown Estate, the body with which these rents are negotiated.

Is it a public or royal organisation?

I initially thought it qualified as a royal organisation because it is owned by the monarch, but its profits go back to the Treasury, which surely then makes it a public body?

So if it is the latter, and its profits go in to the public purse, why are Edward and Sophie and their two dc living in a house with 120 rooms and paying a relatively small rent, when the Crown Estate should be extracting as large a rent for the public purse as possible?

Is this right? Happy to stand corrected.

And my other question is why is this arrangement so complex and the lines between public and private funding
so blurred?

In any other charity or organisation in this day and age, surely you have to have a clear, transparent division between the two?

I don't know, but he could raise some money by writing an autobiography and calling it 'Spare Spare'.

I get why homes in Windsor or at the various London palaces can only be let otherwise they could, over time, be sold to anyone. I’m not quite sure why for something off site needs that treatment, unless possibly it is more tax efficient and avoid something like stamp duty.

It's a money-making investment for the owner of the land. They get to charge rents, charge large amounts for extending leases, or making huge profits by buying out the properties with expiring leases on their land cheaply then reselling again at a profit.

I thought the current government was trying to stop it from happening with new builds now.

The Duchy of Cornwall is private property, it does not belong to the public purse.

Not strictly true.

If there was no Duke of Cornwall, it would belong in the public purse. In the 1300's it was set up for the Duke of Cornwall and I think it is wrong to say it is a private property. It isn't.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/05/who-owns-and-profits-from-the-duchies-of-lancaster-and-cornwall-timeline

The crown estate is a very different beast to your normal land owner. For security reasons they couldn’t let sections of Windsor park be eventually be sold to anyone. But Bagshott wouldn’t matter in the same way.

Doesn’t Buckingham palace have nearly 1000 rooms, why can’t they all live there?

But if it's generating money then it's worth keeping for the sake of the whole estate.

As an aside - how ridiculous does Anne look in that hat!? It’s so funny how none of them grew out of fancy dress

Especially when millions are being spent to renovate it.

Although apparently the last but one of W&C's 'forever homes' also costing millions to renovate is now office space and an occasional layover pad if they need a place to rest their weary heads when in London so we can all rest easy that money is being wisely spent.

When I bought my first (leasehold) flat for 99 years for £250,000 I had to pay a ground rent of £100 pa. Ground rent is also known as a peppercorn rent. Is it any different to Edward? Not facetious a genuine question. Gave sinusitis and can’t concentrate properly

The crown estates is paying for the long overdue repairs and updating needed in BP. It hadn’t been re wired since the 1940s.
it’s a listed, public building. Do you know of anybody who pays for repairs on a home they get with a job? Does Keir pay for Downing Street & Chequers? Nobody ever winges about that. I don’t think he’s even taxed on it, in the same way the rest of us are for ‘perks of a job’.
Ergo, Kensington Palace needed a massive overhaul. Apartment 1A that was previously Princess Margaret’s hadn’t been renovated since 1960. There was a lot of asbestos that needed removing from a Grade 1 listed building - I don’t know if you have any experience of renovating listed buildings but it’s a nightmare-plus throw in the Royal Palaces Trust and everything has to be done properly to a high standard because of the historical importance of the building.
They never said KP was their ‘forever home’. It was their first real home and it was safe for them being in the Kensington Palace compound.
Buckingham Palace isn’t a home. The late Queen had an apartment there. It’s mainly an administrative home of the Royal machine. Lots of people who work there also sleep and/or live there.
Im glad they are protected. If you begrudge the pennies it costs I’ll pay your share.i wouldn’t trade places with them.
Would you like to think every terrorist with a back pack bomb would love to blow your kids up?

Generally they lived in Buck Palace until they got married...at that point they were given a marital home. Anne was given Gatcombe Park in the 70s, Andy and Fergie had Sunninghill Park constructed when they began married life. Edward took out a lease on Bagshot not long before he got married. Prince Harry moved into Frogmore after him and Meghan got hitched.

Sinusitis is awful. Hope you feel better soon NewAgeNewMe.

Thank you

Edward wasn't more sensible back then though, he was a fairly useless laughing stock who couldn't seem to put a foot right. Kept trying to have a real job but couldn't separate work from the royals. He was ridiculed for failing one of the military officer entry courses (marines, I think), which was a bit harsh as it's extremely tough, but he should have listened to advice not to try for it (assuming he was advised against it).
He wasn't a leering lecherous oik like Mr Mountbatten Windsor but he was certainly a loose cannon.

Exactly. I think the only reason he and Sophie turned to full on "working" royals is because he was useless at everything else. And being a working royal will involve them turning up, shaking hands and looking interested. The rest will be done by the real workers, the staff. Including writing up the briefings for them, so royals appear to know a bit about wherever they're sent.

I do thing the entire operation could be slimmed down enormously to lighten the load on the tax payer.

They have Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace, Clarence House, Kensington Palace in London and Windsor Castle a short distance away which are a mix of administrative and residential buildings.

The number of staff needed to maintain, run and protect all of these places must be enormous!

How much does one family of approximately seven people, now PA is excluded, need exactly?

My family member’s entire army platoon of about forty souls is housed and operational in a building no larger than your average mini Tesco!

It wasn’t just way back then either I’m afraid. Didn’t his production company attract a bollocking from KC3 for trying to film William
at St Andrew’s after an agreement with the press at large had been brokered to leave him in peace?

Sorry to lay in to the guy as he can’t help being born in to the RF but I don’t think he likes to shake hands either, which you think would be a minium requirement for the job.

They never said KP was their ‘forever home’. It was their first real home and it was safe for them being in the Kensington Palace compound.

I wonder then why having spent millions refurbishing it (and installing a 950ft hedge some years later) they felt the need to move to Anmer.

If you begrudge the pennies it costs I’ll pay your share

I do. Feel free 🙂

Since Buckingham Palace seems to no longer be in favour as living quarters, I think much more of it needs to be given over to being open for tourists, and be open all year round, excepting the times it's required for state visits and other functions. These will have been arranged well in advance so a longer opening calendar isn't going to intrude. And it would even be fine if it was closed at fairly short (i.e. 3 months) notice for a visit or specific event.

St James's Palace is already open to the public on "select days" - it can be open a lot more than that, and completely turned over to being a tourist experience. Anne, Beatrice, and Alexandra can move their London residences to Kensington Palace.

Clarence House is the choice of Charles and Camilla for their London Residence, so keep that one.

The rest of the dwindling "working" family can continue to use Kensington Palace as their London pads, or move there from St James's, with other high faluting people renting as they seem to already do.

The family seem to like Windsor Castle and its grounds, so the BP admin staff can all debunk from BP, it's only 20 miles away after all!

I agree they do not need all these properties in London!

I've just read the German state banquet was held at Windsor Castle. In that case they can dispense with Buckingham Palace altogether other than for the obligatory balcony shots.

Over time palaces and houses have stopped being used, and property they own has been sold when it fell out of favour.

The Wales will probably never set foot in BP once W becomes King, apart from obligatory balcony appearances. Wonder what will happen to it.

I think it'll be open to the public all year round after the renovations have been finished.

QEII being at Windsor during lockdowns, and Charles being at Clarence House and Windsor during the renovations has shown that the old belief that the monarch had to live at BP is no longer true.

It can be utilised as a tourist attraction, bringing in more money, on many more occasions and only used for state occasions.