King Charles oversees and profits from the Duchy of Lancaster, while Prince William oversees and profits from the Duchy of Cornwall. These duchies are the two biggest land-holders in the UK, and they are inherited by the sovereign and the heir automatically. Both Charles and William have made a big deal about how they’ve brought these feudal remnants into the 21st century. They have not. They are slumlords who trap people in cold, moldy, unrenovated rentals under bonkers lease terms. They are also drawing profits from price-gouging charities and hospitals for commercial space. To make matters worse, William is seemingly selling off chunks of the Duchy of Cornwall and no one knows if he’s pocketing the profits because there’s little oversight. Well, back to the slumlord thing – according to a new investigation, the two duchies’ residential rentals are environmental disasters. Both Charles and William refuse to update and upgrade the rentals too.

King Charles and Prince William could be facing a potential bill of up to £10million to bring hundreds of rental homes on their private estates up to the Government’s upcoming energy-efficiency standards. Laboue has announced rental properties now require an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of C or higher by 2030 – up from the current minimum of E.

An investigation by The Guardian has revealed nearly nine out of 10 domestic properties across the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duchy of Lancaster, and the Sandringham estate hold energy performance certificate ratings of D or below, meaning they will, by law, require upgrades. Upgrade costs are estimated at as much as £10,000 per property, with fines of £30,000 for each non-compliant home still being let.

Energy performance certificates were introduced in 2007 as carbon emissions became an increasing public concern. They grade properties from A, the most efficient, down to G, the worst performers, offering an estimate of running costs and environmental impact. A Government spokesman said: “Everyone deserves to live in a warm, comfortable home. Our plans for private rental homes to be EPC C by 2030 could lift up to half a million households out of fuel poverty by 2030, cutting bills to give families across the country the breathing space they need.”

Across the country, slightly more than half of all privately rented homes currently fall below the C standard. The royal estates, however, perform notably worse than the national average. The Sandringham estate in Norfolk fares worst of all. Of more than 150 EPCs examined by the newspaper, 99 per cent carried ratings between D and G, with not a single property achieving an A or B, while just one managed a C. Three-quarters of the homes analysed sat at E – the bare minimum currently permitted for rental properties and two levels below the new requirements.

As for the Duchy of Lancaster, spanning roughly 18,000 hectares from north-west England to London, more than 90 per cent of its 200-plus assessed properties missed the C threshold, with nearly half rated E and more than a quarter at D. Upgrading those homes, it is said, could cost upwards of £2million.

Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall, covering some 55,000 hectares predominantly in the south-west, performed marginally better at around 80 per cent below C. Its improvement bill alone could reach £5million.

With the King’s Foundation and William’s Earthshot Prize, both the monarch and his eldest son have built reputations as champions of environmental causes, so the disappointing energy performance of properties on their private estates may be surprising.

Jonathan Bean, a spokesman for the campaign group Fuel Poverty Action, said: “The royal duchies should be leading the way in upgrading all their properties to a minimum EPC of C by 2030 to protect people’s health and the environment. Instead, they are dragging their feet and looking for loopholes. If even the richest landlords are allowed to get away with it, what hope is there of getting the rest to do the right thing?” He urged ministers to “close all loopholes and increase enforcement efforts”.

[From GB News]

The Duchy of Cornwall’s profits – as in, William’s “income” – are reportedly around $30-45 million annually. The Duchy of Lancaster is pretty secretive, but it’s widely believed that it’s easily worth $500 million or more. My point? Both duchies could easily reinvest their profits into modernizing their rentals and bringing everything up to environmental code, not to mention updating those rentals so that Charles and William are not the two biggest slumlords in the UK. The money is there – £10 million across two duchies, to bring hundreds of rentals up to code is not some huge amount for them. They just refuse to do it on principle. They’re like… NO, we’re slumlords, deal with it!

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.