Prince Andrew has been forced to leave Royal Lodge, his 30-room mansion in Windsor.
He has also lost his "prince" title and will now be known as Andrew Mountbatten Windsor.
In an announcement yesterday (30 October), Buckingham Palace said: "His lease on Royal Lodge has, to date, provided him with legal protection to continue in residence. Formal notice has now been served to surrender the lease and he will move to alternative private accommodation."
It comes amid the ongoing scandal over his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as the release of Virginia Giuffre’s posthumous memoir.
But there are now questions over whether he will receive a £558,000 payout for leaving the mansion. Here is what we know.
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What we know about the potential payout
The furor around Andrew’s continued living arrangements at the Grade II-listed property intensified last week when it emerged his lease for Royal Lodge meant he only paid a "peppercorn" rent for the past two decades.
The leasehold agreement, as reported by the PA news agency, also contained a clause which stated the Crown Estate would have to pay Andrew around £558,000 if he gave up the lease.
It is understood this is now a matter for the Crown Estate, but that any compensation payment to Andrew could be affected by possible remedial works necessary on the property.
Yahoo News UK has asked the Crown Estate to confirm the nature of the lease and if Andrew will be given £558,000.
The idea of him being paid to leave sparked anger among campaigners. Earlier this week, before the announcement that Andrew was leaving, anti-monarchy campaign group Republic told Yahoo News UK: "It’s outrageous that Andrew should be given money for moving out of the Royal Lodge.
"Essentially, he’d be rewarded for being accused of sexual abuse. That’s an insult to his alleged victims, the public and the country." Andrew has always vehemently denied any wrongdoing. Republic added: "The Crown Estate belongs to the country. It isn’t owned by the royals. Any income from it shouldn’t be given to the monarchy – it should be used to improve our underfunded public services."
Lisa Smart, the Liberal Democrats Cabinet Office spokesperson, also told Yahoo News UK: "By disgracing his office, Prince Andrew has relinquished any rights to special treatment at the expense of the taxpayer. The government needs to provide clarity. Taxpayers deserve to know."
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Meanwhile, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has formally questioned Dan Labbad, chief executive and second commissioner of The Crown Estate, about the potential payout, giving a deadline of 28 November for responses.
Where does Andrew get his money from?
Andrew’s only publicly declared stream of income is a pension he receives from his time in the Royal Navy between 1979 and 2001, according to The Guardian.
This annual sum has been quoted in the media at £20,000 a year, but historian Andrew Lownie, author of Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, told Yahoo News UK it will likely be higher as it will have gone up with inflation.
The last published figure on the amount of public money Andrew received as a working royal was £249,000 per year in 2010, according to The Guardian.
After that, his mother Queen Elizabeth II was understood to have paid him money from her own private wealth while he carried out royal engagements.
Before Royal Lodge, Andrew lived at Sunninghill Park near Ascot after it was gifted to him by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2007, he sold the property to buyers from Kazakhstan for £15m.
According to a 2024 book by royal writer Robert Hardman, King Charles cut Andrew’s £1m annual "living allowance" in November 2024 after he reportedly refused to move out of Royal Lodge.
Hardman also wrote that Andrew claimed to have found other sources of income related to his contacts in international trade. He was the UK special representative for international trade and investment between 2001 and 2011.
Elsewhere, Andrew set up his Pitch@Palace business initiative in 2014 to help entrepreneurs and startup businesses.
Lownie told Yahoo News UK last year that Andrew also has "trust funds inherited from the members of the family, so he will be well catered for by several generations of the Royal Family".
Andrew’s civil lawsuit with Giuffre in 2022 cost him a reported £12m to settle. On how he could afford this, Lownie said: "We don’t know. He had money from selling his house in Sunninghill for £15m [in 2017] and a chalet in Switzerland. There’s some suggestion the Queen helped him... but we don’t really know."
What is the Crown Estate?
The Crown Estate is a vast portfolio of land and property that is owned by the Monarch “in right of the Crown”.
This means that while the King owns the estate during his reign, it is not his private property and he does not manage or make decisions about its assets.
This dates back to 1760, when George III surrendered the management of crown lands to parliament for a fixed annual payment.
The Crown Estate describes itself as an independent and commercial organisation, whose profit is delivered to the Treasury, who then decide the annual payment to the King in the form of the sovereign grant.
It is one of the largest property managers in the UK, with a £13bn investment portfolio including renewable energy projects, regeneration schemes, real estate and more than 200,000 acres of rural land, according to its latest annual report.
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