Andrew gives up lease on Crown Estate property

Andrew gives up lease on Crown Estate property 24 minutes ago Share Save Sean Coughlan Royal correspondent Share Save Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is giving up the lease on another Crown Estate property, the BBC understands. Mountbatten-Windsor has asked to end his lease on East Lodge, near his former home at Sunninghill Park in Berkshire, with documents seen by the BBC showing he has been paying an annual rent of almost £13,000. Last year the former prince announced he was leaving Royal Lodge in Windsor and moving to Sandringham over his links to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. He has previously denied wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. But Mountbatten-Windsor had kept the tenancy of East Lodge, a Grade II-listed cottage located about five miles from Windsor, which is believed to have been used for staff accommodation. The 19th-Century, single-storey, thatched cottage was the lodge near the much bigger Sunninghill Park, which had been the former Prince Andrew's home until he moved to Royal Lodge in 2004. The sale of Sunninghill Park in 2007 for £15m was controversial - with the son-in-law of Kazakhstan's president buying it for £3m more than the asking price. But East Lodge, in a desirable location between Windsor and Ascot, remained as a separate arrangement between the then Duke of York and the Crown Estate - and seems to be another jigsaw piece in his complex finances. Such royal properties leased by the Crown Estate are going to be under scrutiny from MPs on the Public Accounts Committee, which has announced an inquiry due to begin later this year. Chairman Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown has said the committee's scrutiny of royal leases will "aid transparency in public-interest information, as part of its overall mission to secure value for money for the taxpayer". Lease documents show that the then Duke of York took on the tenancy of East Lodge in February 1998, paying an initial £3,500 annual rent to the Crown Estate. There was a provision for the rent to increase wi...