This flurry of House of York news is certainly interesting. Two things can be true at the same time: the Yorks have been living lavishly for decades on the taxpayer’s dime, AND the Yorks are being purposefully scapegoated to hide other royal lies and misdeeds. Soon after Prince Andrew was seen driving around the Sandringham estate with a massively bruised face, several stories came out about Andrew’s royal real estate.

From 2002 through this year, Andrew lived at Royal Lodge on the Windsor estate. It’s a palatial mansion, and he only paid “peppercorn rent” on it for 23 years. When Andrew was arrested in February, the police executed a search warrant on Royal Lodge, which is where most of Andrew’s belongings were still housed despite his hasty retreat to Sandringham. It took the police weeks/months to go through RL, but now RL officially stands empty and unoccupied. The Sun brought up the idea that RL could be given to Queen Camilla or perhaps the Wales family, but they’re still saying that no one wants it. A £30 million home has been “tainted.” Meanwhile, an audit of royal properties discovered that during his time in RL, Andrew was subletting various cottages and pocketing the money.

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received an undisclosed rental income from sub-letting three cottages on the Royal Lodge estate that he leased from the Crown Estate, the public spending watchdog has revealed.

Mountbatten-Windsor had paid £7.5m for repairs when he took on the lease for Royal Lodge, and that meant that he did not have to pay a monthly rent.

The NAO report was prompted by the scandal surrounding Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor – and will be followed by an inquiry by MPs on the public accounts committee. It shows a collection of 12 properties used by Mountbatten-Windsor and his family.

Even though Mountbatten-Windsor left Royal Lodge earlier this year, moving to Sandringham in Norfolk, he still has the lease on Royal Lodge until October 2026.

There is no suggestion in the NAO report of any wrongdoing by Mountbatten-Windsor.

As well as the main building at Royal Lodge, there were another eight nearby properties, with Mountbatten-Windsor’s lease allowing three of these cottages to be sub-let, which he did until April 2026. The report does not say how much he received in rental income, but Palace sources suggest he rented the property to staff or retired staff and the amount was only enough to cover running costs.

Whatever the amount, it went to Mountbatten-Windsor rather than the Crown Estate, which would pay its profits back to the Treasury.

He also had another lease for a property called East Lodge, which the BBC previously revealed was to be handed back to the Crown Estate.

[From BBC]

To be clear, in addition to the main house of Royal Lodge, Andrew also had control of EIGHT “nearby properties” and he subleased three of them and pocketed the cash?? And he also leased East Lodge, about five miles away from Royal Lodge, for an annual rent of £13,000. Insane. But… but… Frogmore Cottage, amirite? Harry and Meghan lived in a four-bedroom house! They paid market rent on their one home and people lost their damn minds about it.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.