Andrew, former prince, granted $570,000 for surrendering Royal Lodge lease

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been awarded £302,000 (CAD$570,176.00) in compensation after he was forced to surrender the lease on his Windsor home decades early following public discontent surrounding his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The Crown Estate announced Friday that the former prince had fully vacated the Royal Lodge, a 30-room, 98-acre property in Berkshire, west of London and was entitled to the compensation because he moved out of the property less than 25 years into his 75-year lease.

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The term was included in the lease to reflect the £7.5 million worth of refurbishments made by the tenant at the start of the lease, the Crown Estate said.

He also had to pay a £1.8 million (CAD $3.4 million) bill for repairs to the royal residence on departure, bringing the total paid to £1.5 million (CAD $2.8 million)

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“The Crown Estate is now focused on determining the potential future use of the property,” the commercial business said.

The Crown Estate is an independent company established by Parliament to manage a vast portfolio of property throughout the U.K. that is nominally owned by the sovereign but is operated for the benefit of taxpayers.

Mountbatten-Windsor’s residence at Royal Lodge was a contested issue due to the small sum he paid for rent on the estate and because he signed the lease in 2003, when he was still a working member of the Royal Family.

He stepped back from royal duties in 2019 because of concerns over his relationship with Epstein.

Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles and ordered to leave the royal residence by his older brother, King Charles III, last year over his ties to Epstein.

Correspondence between the convicted sex offender and the former prince was released by the U.S. Justice Department in January, along with millions of pages of documents from the American investigation into Epstein.

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Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on Feb. 19 on suspicion of misconduct in public office during his time as a U.K. trade envoy over allegations that he sent secret government documents to Epstein.

Earlier this week, a U.K. High Court judge ruled that warrants obtained by British police to search the Royal Lodge for evidence of those allegations were unlawful. The decision came in response to a petition from the former prince’s lawyers challenging the legality of the search warrants granted in the lead-up to his arrest.

Mountbatten-Windsor has denied any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein. He has not been charged with any crimes.

He gave up his role as trade envoy in 2011.

The allegations connected to the warrants are separate from those made by Virginia Giuffre, who claimed she was trafficked to Britain to have sex with the former prince in 2001, when she was just 17. Giuffre died by suicide last year.

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Still, Giuffre’s family praised the arrest, saying that their “broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty.”

Mountbatten-Windsor’s detainment was the first time in nearly four centuries that a senior British royal was placed under arrest.

Mountbatten-Windsor now lives on a private property on Sandringham estate owned by the King.