Last summer, the Prince and Princess of Wales announced that they were moving locations within the Royal Windsor Estate. At the time, they had spent three years living at the smallish Adelaide Cottage, a four-bedroom home close to Windsor Castle. They spent years trying to convince everyone that they “needed” Royal Lodge (then leased by Prince Andrew) or Fort Belvedere (still leased by the Weston family). At the end of the day, they ended up moving into Forest Lodge, a large manor house on the edge of the Windsor estate. They subsequently evicted several people in cottages close-by, and they grabbed 150 acres of public parkland for their “estate.” Well, as part of the National Audit Office’s audit of royal property, it’s now been confirmed that the Crown Estate (not William and Kate) paid for the £400,000 worth of renovations to Forest Lodge before the Wales family moved in.

The royal family’s housing arrangements have been a subject of interest after it was revealed that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor paid peppercorn rent for his former home, Royal Lodge, and earned an income from other properties on the estate.

A new report by the National Audit Office has now shed light on Princess Beatrice, Princess Eugenie, Duchess Sophie and more royal accommodation. Among the findings was a deep-dive into the financial details of the Prince and Princess of Wales’ new home, Forest Lodge, where they live with their three kids, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, after moving from nearby Adelaide Cottage in October 2025.

According to the public spending watchdog, the Crown Estate sank a total of £396,993 into the Windsor home in 2025 to make it suitable for the royals. This means the renovation costs alone exceeded the average property value in England, which is £268,000, by more than £100,000.

Specifically, the repair costs were broken down into: the main Georgian property, which cost £213,353 for heating, plumbing and structural repairs; two stable cottages used for live-in staff, which cost £48,575 and £90,626; and a barn, which came to £44,439.

A third stable cottage is also included in William and Kate’s lease, but it did not require works to be carried out as the previous tenant did not leave until January 2026.

This marked the second set of changes carried out at the home in the past three decades. Constructed in the 1770s, the Grade-II listed building underwent a glow-up that is believed to have cost around £1.5 million ($2 million) in 2001.

[From Hello]

I’m impressed with William and Kate’s sleight of hand now that I’m looking back at last year’s coverage of the move. They never directly said that they were financing the costly renovations themselves. Instead, they centered the storyline about how Forest Lodge is their new “forever home” and they “deserved” a grand manor home because they’d had a rough three years. They made it sound like moving to Forest Lodge (and billing the Crown Estate for £396,993) was their only choice, because they were so desperately sad and desperately in need of more space. And here’s the thing – people will magically “understand” why the Crown Estate picked up the cost of renovation, because this is Crown Estate property and the Waleses only have a lease (as opposed to owning it outright). Magically, this who-pays-for-royal-property-renovations issue was super-confusing when it was about Frogmore Cottage. Anyway… I still think the 150 acres of public parkland is a bigger deal, but it’s interesting to watch as this renovation-cost story is getting buried in real time.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid, Cover Images.