Prince Andrew’s mansion has fallen into disrepair, with cracks and mould appearing on the outside walls.
Crumbling paintwork, cracks, and black mould can be seen on the outside walls where inside his beloved mother once roamed with her sister Margaret as a young Princess Elizabeth.
The shocking state of the Duke of York’s 30-room Windsor Royal Lodge comes just days after it emerged King Charles had severed his beleaguered younger brother’s annual personal allowance, believed to be £1 million.
Andrew, 64, who now lives in the £30 million property with his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, signed a 75-year lease with the Crown Estate when he moved in, making a £1million initial payment.
The agreement included a notional rent of £260,000 a year.
Andrew, who remains an outcast from public life amid the fallout from his relationship with peadophile Jeffrey Epstein, has spent nearly £7million carrying out extensive renovations and repairs to the property.
He has refused all requests by his brother to move into the smaller Frogmore Cottage.
An updated biography by acclaimed royal writer Robert Hardman, serialised by the Mail, revealed this week that despite the Duke of York’s attempts to call the monarch’s bluff, Charles has acted decisively.
In recent weeks he has instructed his Keeper of the Privy Purse, the monarchy’s finance director, to sever his beleaguered younger brother’s annual personal allowance – believed to be in the region of £1 million a year – and no longer pays for his seven-figure private security detail.
‘The duke is no longer a financial burden on the King,’ confirms a source.
The King, who has also long made clear his wish to see Andrew move out of his vast mansion at Windsor, Royal Lodge, has now placed the ball firmly back in his brother’s court.
In doing so, he has, Hardman also reveals for the first time, made good on his late mother’s determination to solve the ‘Andrew issue‘ once and for all.
The Express reported last month that the repair costs for Royal Lodge have surpassed £2 million.
A source told the paper that the Duke had been given a deadline until the end of the year to prove he had the necessary funds to carry out the work.
‘It’s the closest Andrew has come to being evicted since he was asked to step down as a working royal two years ago,’ the source said.
The lease he signed in 2003 states he has a responsibility to ‘repair, renew, uphold, clean and keep in repair and where necessary rebuild’ the home.
This includes repainting its external walls every five years with ‘two coats of paint’ from 2008 and redecorating inside every seven years from 2010.
This means that the exterior decorating was due to have been completed last year, while the interior work is set to be done this year.
The document – which was seen by The Times – dictated that he must ‘paint with at least two coats of paint and to paper, polish, decorate and otherwise appropriately treat’ the building’s interior walls.
Andrew signed the lease, paying £250 a week and agreeing to maintain the vast property.
Claims emerged last year that Andrew could not meet the £400,000-a-year upkeep of Royal Lodge.
Situated in 98 acres in Windsor Great Park, the property was once known as King’s Lodge but its name was changed by the Duke of Cumberland when he became King George IV in 1820.
In 1931, King George V gave permission for his son, Prince Albert, the Duke of York, and his wife to take over the property and they moved in the following year.
They used the 30-room Royal Lodge as a private country house, even after they became Duke and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1936.
After George VI’s death in 1952, the Queen Mother continued to live at Royal Lodge at weekends until her death in 2002.
Her grandson Prince Andrew, the present Duke of York, has lived there since 2004.