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 do wish they'd learn (by they I mean RF and governments) to update historic buildings as we go along though.

The whole "ignore it for years and years until it's dire, then repair at huge cost" is a shit way to run things.

Thanks for this information. That’s all good! I didn’t know that St James’s palace is open to the public and I am pleased it is.

But I suppose the sheer volume of the property portfolio makes me uneasy.

I don’t think the RF should need so many state administrative and residential buildings in this day and age of technology.

And I think the RF are wealthy enough to provide their own accommodation just like nurses working for the NHS have to do!

Charles’s personal acquisition of properties continues too with the purchase of Camilla’s neighbours house,

The RF say there must be distinct rules about HIHO but isn’t there a conflict of interest with our head of state owning so much land and having so much personal wealth? Surely that gives them more influence than should be due to someone holding one of our most important positions of state?

There are non-royals renting apartments in St James’ Palace already - Catherine Zeta Jones and Michael Douglas have one.

They come up for tent occasionally over the years.

Charles’s personal acquisition of properties continues too with the purchase of Camilla’s neighbours house,

To be fair on that one - someone setting up a wedding venue next door to Camilla's house would have been a security nightmare, especially as there had already been issues with the Airbnb the neighbour set up.

Far better he use £3million of his own money to buy the neighbour's house than the security features fitted to her house years ago be an absolute waste of money.

Quite a few of the apartments at Kensington Palace and St James' Palace are privately let at market rents.

I read that Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones rent an apartment at St James.

Sorry if this has already been covered, but how many of the 120 (!!!!) rooms at Bagshott do Edward and Sophie actually use? It seems ridiculously huge for a couple in their 60s - especially since their children will presumably be at university or living independently elsewhere.

Especially in the context of the Tories penalising retired council tenants without resident dependents - viz. bedroom tax - because they felt that they ought to downsize to 1-bedroom flats… ONE bedroom!!

Although t he "bedroom tax" is not an actual tax but is the level of welfare benefits you can claim. I doubt if Edward and Sophie are claiming housing benefit.

It's not like it's a rental property - although the tabloids don't seem to understand the difference between rentals and buying a leasehold property. Having paid £6.5 million in 2007 (worth £11.5 million today) for a lease he can use the property as he wants - just like if you bought a leasehold flat.

I don't think for a second it has 120 rooms.

It had around 120 rooms when the current building was built in 1879. Since then it's been revamped several times - including military use in the war and as housing for Army chaplains - including a £2 million + revamp when the then-Wessexes were moving in.

Back when it was first built there were 30 servants living there according to the census - the extensive servants housing (likely in the attic) is an example of lots of rooms that likely don't exist any more.

Fort Belvedere had around 40 rooms when the Lascelles took it on in the 50s, but in the 70s when they moved on it was advertised as having around 15 rooms post re-modelling.

Bagshot will have a lot of rooms - I'm not saying it's small by any means - but there's no way it still has 100+ rooms imo. I think a lot of small rooms have been changed into a (large by normal house standards) number of large rooms.

but there's no way it still has 100+ rooms imo.

It does still have 120 rooms according to Wiki, RRs who have been there, other sources and some articles from 2022.
Along with 51 acres, a lake, stables
The house is worth £30M and the whole estate £45M

I agree that it is highly unlikely to have 120 usable rooms today. We live in a very big house and an entire floor (used to be the servants quarters) is shut off. As are all the annexes and working rooms that used to be inhabited and used by staff. Our house used to have 30 or so live in staff versus none now.

I don't know why people are saying this when every single news source says it does have 120 rooms . I do agree that probably 100 rooms are shut off, and Ed and Sophie probably barely use 20 of them

What does it matter...it is VAST for two people whose children aren't at home full time

Nobody has been invited to have a look around and report on it since Edward and Sophie moved in.

The one photo shoot she did in their kitchen area, and any glimpses during zoom calls in Covid, were reported as being "very rare glimpses".

Wiki isn't a remotely reliable source as anyone can edit it.

Have it your way
It's been reduced to a mere 50 rooms lol.. all those walls to knock down! And in a Grade II listed building!

I just find it odd that endless sources quote it as being 120 rooms, even various royalty sites and sites that chronicle changes to royal residences and websites about the Crown Estate.
But you know different!
Please provide sources if you are able, thx!

I don't think the number of rooms matter really.

Surely what matters is why and how the largely unchanged overall footprint of an unashamed monster mansion comes to be occupied by a largely irrelevant royal adjunct.

All that matters is was the lease price what would have been offered any other private person leasing the building.

There are many buildings large, medium and small available for leasing and rent across the Crown estates - different rules and requirements based on the specific location. But what matters is for each specific option - is the price the same for royals and non royals?

Does Beatrice pay the same market level of rent for her St James’ apartment as Catherine Zeta Jones does for hers.

Edited: I agree Jumpingthehighjump

And I am probably a bit late catching up with this but I understand that the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee is going to investigate the terms under which the royals occupy properties owned by the Crown Estate, on the grounds that as a public body, it has a duty to maximise the value of its £15billion land and property portfolio for the public purse.

So that is good news as far as I’m concerned. and long overdue.

I know Charles has been ill and I think some of the things he has done as king have been good so far, but I really cannot for the life of me understand why he didn’t make a plan during all those years when he was PoW to get a handle on some of this extravagance.

Now that we have had the Lownie book published, the above investigation is about to take place, plus the Dimbleby series, it will seem like anything that is done is a reluctant reaction and afterthought to appease public disquiet, rather than really grasping the mettle and taking a positive decision to effect change.

Article in DM today highlighting the royal rent scandal and detailing how Princess Alexandra pays just £2700 a year for a rather lush looking property in Richmond.

archive.ph/B8Uyl

We also find her daughter Marina has a property in Windsor Great Park (having at one point relied on state benefits to help with the rent).

Incredible.

Yes, yes they are. Despicable.

😠

Have I read that right? Bagshott Park has 51 acres of grounds? Fifty-one?

Is it clear who pays for the maintenance of all of that?

Edited: on reflection I think I agree with Richard Kay that all of this has left KC3 rather exposed. It’s obvious he is and was dealing with the vestiges of long outdated practices prevalent during his mother’s reign when there was much more deference to the RF.

It says in the article that Princess Alexandra used to be a hard-working member of the RF and of course she is now elderly and living in an apartment in St James’s Palace and that seems very reasonable. But why then does she still need to rent a substantial home in Windsor Great Park for a paltry amount?

It gives the impression that the late Queen landed Charles with all of these issues and Charles in turn was planning to kick them through the long grass to William, or he has been too ill to deal with them, and now more and more is being revealed it’s too little too late.

By all accounts Charles lives quite extravagantly so I can’t help thinking that this was one of the reasons he couldn’t or wouldn’t act?

How was the land in the Duchy of Cornwall acquired by the royals? Did they raise a finger for it? Do they raise a finger for it now? Parasites.

As far as I understand it the Earldom of Cornwall was created in 1066 and granted to Norman Lords by William the Conqueror

In 1300 Edmund Earl of Cornwall died without an heir and the lands reverted to the King

In 1337 Edward III created the duchy for his eldest son - and it has passed to the heir ever since.

Having looked at photos of the place, I find it very hard to believe it only has 50 odd rooms now. Compare the size of it with Royal Lodge (30 rooms), those extra 20 rooms would have to take up entire floors to fit in the space. It's absolutely massive!

And what on earth are four people using all of those rooms for???? It's utterly ridiculous.

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

Isn't that what we were told about Andrew too?

As if ANY of them would dip into their own pockets if there's the slighest chance of someone else paying

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/queen-tried-to-use-state-poverty-fund-to-heat-buckingham-palace-2088179.html

Thanks @Lunde, that’s excellent knowledge.

It does also mean that all those descendants have done f all really. I’d like to see the lands and assets of the duchies back in the hands of the people rather than this avaricious royal family.