King Charles has been footing the bill for Beatrice and Eugenie’s rent

Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie have had their rent paid by the King despite being non-working royals.

The royal family has once again been accused of ‘taking the public for a ride’ after a National Audit Office report has revealed the extent of their benefits.

Their adjusted rents, which are reduced because the Royal Household properties require tenants with security clearance, were based on out-of-date open market valuations.

This is despite both women having their own careers and husbands with high-paying jobs.

Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, who is married to Beatrice, is a property developer executive, and Jack Brooksbank, who is married to Eugenie, is a marketing executive.

Both couples own multi-million-pound homes elsewhere across the world, so it is not known why they were not paying their own rent for Beatrice’s St James’s Palace apartment and Eugenie’s Ivy Cottage home.

Disgraced Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has also been subletting three cottages on his Royal Lodge estate, despite paying just a peppercorn rent himself.

Sources suggest to the NAO the homes were rented out to staff, with their rent only covering maintenance cost, but no details have been released to prove this.

Former Liberal Democrat minister Norman Baker branded the arrangements for the Princesses ‘outrageous’, saying following Andrew’s controversy surrounding his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein ‘adds insult to injury’.

He said: ‘There’s no way that non-working members of the royal family should be subsidised by the Duchy of Lancaster.

‘The royal family is yet again taking the public for a complete ride.’

Up until this year, Eugenie’s rent of Ivy Cottage in Kensington Palace was based on a 2018 valuation and Beatrice’s apartment in St James’s Palace on a 2020 valuation.

Both rents are paid to the Royal Household entirely by Charles out of the Privy Purse which comes from his private Duchy of Lancaster income.

And it is not just the Princesses. The late Queen’s cousins Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, dubbed the ‘Rent-a-Kents’ in the early 2000s who would ‘go anywhere for a hotmeal’ have enjoyed a long-term subsidised rent in an apartment in Kensington Palace.

They had only paid £69 per week from 1978, but once this was made public Queen Elizabeth to cover the £120,000 until 2010. But this agreement is still in place with King Charles.

Princess Alexandra, 89, also cousin of the late Queen, rents a mansion in Richmond Park, south west London, with her lease negotiated between her trust and the Crown Estate set to end in 2144, when she will be 207.

Meanwhile Andrew could be entitled up to £300,000 in ‘compensation’ from the Crown Estate after he was forced out Royal Lodge over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.

It is also not known whether Andrew’s sublet properties were consistently rented out, but his subletting of the residences ended in April 2026.

He finally quit Royal Lodge earlier this year, moving to the King’s private Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Any potential compensation would go towards repairs on Royal Lodge since his eviction, with sources for Andrew insisting he is unlikely to ever see a penny.

But the amount he will receive, if any, is still not known because the Crown Estate is waiting to assess the final state of the property.

The then-York family had a total collection of 12 properties within the Crown Estate and the Royal Household in 2025.

Leased from the Crown Estate, Andrew had Royal Lodge which consists of the mansion plus eight properties known as the Main Gate Cottages, three of which could be sublet; plus a lease of Staff Lodge 2 – known as East Lodge – at his former marital home Sunninghill Park for a staff member, which he requested to surrender in February.

Meanwhile the Crown Estate paid nearly £400,000 in 2025 to refurbish the Prince and Princess of Wales’s new home Forest Lodge and three of its accompanying properties before they moved in last autumn.

William and Kate have avoided peppercorn rent accusations by paying £307,200 a year for the home.

But, prior to William and Kate moving in, the Crown Estate funded repairs at the mansion, two of three cottages on the site, the barn and the grounds in line with its obligations as a landlord.

The renovations totalled £396,993, exceeding the average value of a property in England which stands at around £268,000, according to the UK House Price Index.

The Royal Household meanwhile provides 11 working members of the royal family with seven residences within the occupied royal palaces at no cost in exchange for their official duties.

The royals are William and Kate – who have Apartment 1A in Kensington Palace; the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester; the Duke of Kent; the Princess Royal; the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh; Princess Alexandra; and the King and Queen.

A spokesperson for The Crown Estate, said: ‘The Crown Estate welcomes the National Audit Office’s review which confirms its leases with members of the royal family were agreed in line with independent, professional advice and open market valuations.

‘We look forward to discussing the report further with the Public Accounts Committee in due course.’

A Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: ‘We are grateful to the National Audit Office for this report, which is in line with the royal household’s commitment to transparency.

‘We hope that the findings will help correct, clarify or contextualise a number of points regarding royal properties.

‘As the report notes, arrangements for properties managed by the royal household vary based on a number of factors to ensure residences are filled appropriately, depending on their location, tenants and purpose.’

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