Andrew made more than £2,000 a month subletting Royal Lodge cottages

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received more than £2,000 a month from renting out three cottages at his former Royal Lodge home, a report by the public spending watchdog has revealed.

The former prince left the Windsor property earlier this year after more than 20 years and is now living on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk.

Earlier this year, a National Audit Office (NAO) report found Andrew received an undisclosed private income from subletting three cottages on his Royal Lodge estate for two decades, while paying a "peppercorn" rent - usually nominal and as low as £1

Andrew had signed a 75-year lease in 2003 after paying an initial down payment of £1m and spent £7.5m on renovations as part of the agreement.

The Public Accounts Committee's report, published on Friday, showed the former duke of York sublet one cottage at below market rate to an in-situ tenant who worked for the Royal Family, for most of the 22 year-tenancy.

And from late 2021, for an undisclosed period of less than a year, Andrew sublet three cottages in total, generating a combined income, before maintenance and expenses, of just over £2,000 a month.

The details were revealed in a letter from James Chalmers, the Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to the King, to the committee.

However, the total subletting income Andrew received during his more than two decades living on the estate was not divulged and cannot be calculated accurately from the information.

Mr Chalmers wrote that he had "not had access to the underlying documentation or historical records" but shared his understanding on the matter.

The cross-party committee of MPs has issued a series of recommendations as part of its inquiry into both the Crown Estate and properties managed by the Royal Household.

MPs warned the Crown Estate should prohibit subletting as standard in the wake of Andrew receiving an income for renting out cottages on his former Royal Lodge estate.

The committee concluded that the Crown Estate "did not identify specific lessons from the Royal Lodge lease arrangement".

It described the Crown Estate as "reluctant to discuss specifics on how it is applying lessons learned from this process or discuss what they will do differently in the future, due to the Royal Lodge lease being a product of its time".

It also called for the Royal Household to put in place a consistent policy for setting rent in its residential properties after it emerged earlier this year that Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie had adjusted rents, paid for by the King, based on out-of-date open market valuations for a number of years.

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Last October, Buckingham Palace said that notice had been served for Andrew to surrender his lease at the Royal Lodge, and the King initiated the "formal process" to remove his brother's titles and honours.

It came after the US Department of Justice released files relating to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, which contained allegations made against Andrew by one of the billionaire's victims.

Andrew has always denied any wrongdoing.

(c) Sky News 2026: Andrew made more than £2,000 a month subletting Royal Lodge cottages