We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. King Charles will want people to think that he’s still grieving (he’s not) and that the changing of the guards was seamless and there were not many changes made. Unfortunately, the numbers show a different story: King Charles is a landlord and one of the first things he did was raise the rents. That has meant a windfall for the Duchy of Lancaster, a real-estate conglomerate solely owned by the monarch.
Rents in the United Kingdom are rising at a record pace, a trend that helped the nation’s most famous landlord, King Charles III, make a big payday. Charles received 26.2 million pounds, or about $34.3 million, this year from his vast property empire, known as the Duchy of Lancaster. Charles inherited the estate when his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, died last fall.
The 45,000-acre estate is roughly the size of Washington D.C. and generates millions of dollars a year in rental income, without paying corporation taxes like most businesses in Britain are obliged to. (Charles voluntarily pays an undisclosed amount of tax on his private income).
The Duchy recently published its first records since Charles took the throne. They show that he has weathered the financial woes faced by his nation, raking in a bigger private income than his mother ever did. Those profits came in part thanks to increased rents on tenants living on royal land. The Duchy also saw increased earnings from commercial properties.
Charles’s private income from the Duchy was £26.2 million, about £2 million more than his mother last made. Charles has fewer family members to support than his mother did. This money is separate from the annual £86 million (around $112 million) taxpayer-funded Sovereign Grant, which pays for most official royal expenses.
Records show that the Duchy raised rents by 3 percent over the last fiscal year, which is just below the pace of private rental increases that have contributed to a cost-of-living crisis. Private rents are increasing at their fastest rate on record across the United Kingdom, though the official figures only go back to 2016. The Duchy’s rent hikes accounted for an extra £8.2 million for the royal coffers. The Duchy said that “refurbishment and restoration” had led to “improved rental values.”
This was one of the shadiest royal articles I’ve ever read in the Times. The Times emphasized that the Duchy raised the rents in a time of widespread financial hardship for the country, in a time of falling wages and rising food costs. The Times also pointed out that while Charles promised a “slimmed down monarchy,” the Duchy of Lancaster has been on a spending spree. The Duchy’s operating costs have increased, and the chief executive of the Duchy gave himself a pay raise – he’s now making £275,000.
Not only all of that, but Charles has also leased royal land commercially for “royal windfarms,” and it’s been a huge financial success, generating record profits for the Crown Estate. The government isn’t going to let Charles have those profits though – the Sovereign Grant will remain the same, but it will be effectively a “lower percentage” of the Crown Estate’s profits. They had to recalculate the formula so Charles, already a billionaire landlord who raised rents on his tenets, wouldn’t also benefit from the windfarm scheme.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- King Charles III meets dignitaries outside the RNLI station during an official visit to Cornwall on July 13, 2023 in St Ives, England, UK, 13 July 2023,Image: 788918051, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Finnbarr Webster / Avalon
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- ST IVES, ENGLAND – JULY 13: King Charles III waves to members of the public on a walkabout at the harbour during an official visit to Cornwall on July 13, 2023 in St Ives, England.,Image: 788924829, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Finnbarr Webster / Avalon
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- ST IVES, ENGLAND – JULY 13: King Charles III meets members of the public on a walkabout at the harbour during an official visit to Cornwall on July 13, 2023 in St Ives, England.,Image: 788924831, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Finnbarr Webster / Avalon
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- ST IVES, ENGLAND – JULY 13: King Charles III meets members of the public on a walkabout at the harbour during an official visit to Cornwall on July 13, 2023 in St Ives, England.,Image: 788924845, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Finnbarr Webster / Avalon
Greedy, horrible people the lot of that royal family. How does this affect Willy and his latest eliminate homelessness vanity project?
It doesn’t, everything William does is performative…
Chuck also had a raise in income from the UK government, 45%… but hey, giving 4.5% raise to nurses is too much! 😱 I despair….
Despite Charles making more than his mother ever did, “Charles has fewer family members to support than his mother did.” The slimmed-down monarchy benefits Charles and Charles alone.
Like Kaiser said, this article is surprisingly shady for the Times. But, I don’t even know if its shady though – its just stating facts. Charles is getting more money and supporting fewer people.
They tried spinning with the reduction of profits from the wind farm, but the sovereign estate going up 45% in the next few years is utterly insane. There is no basis for it.
@Jais, but not just the money grabbing grifter, I expect camzilla is rubbing her hands and gin bottles in glee! Christ these people make me sick, hey Charlie, how come there was no money for Megan “you crowned shit?
Greed thy name is Chuckles. No wonder his mother held on for as long as she could she knew what greedy monster she raised. Abolish the monarchy.
Definitely I would abolish the monarchy!
The Queen as the previous owner of the Duchy was just as greedy as Charles. She just hid it better.
What does the “Savior of the Homeless” thinl about this?
I’m sure he’s just fine with it. Someday the Duchy of Lancaster will all be his. With the compliant British media refusing to connect the dots on any of this, royalty remains well protected as they pillage and plunder the masses.
And [certain] people out there have the audacity to call the Sussexes grifters??
I don’t understand why people worship this horrible family .
In The Guardian yesterday: “Details published by Treasury show royal family’s grant is expected to increase from £86m to £125m in 2025.”
I came here to say this too, the grant may not be going up immediately but it’s on the horizon and the spin of ‘he’s taking a smaller %’ is a wilful way of covering that they actual £££ he’s taking home will shoot up.
This is where I’m getting confused as I was seeing that yesterday. so for the next year, his percentage of the Crown Estates is going down, but the SG stays the same in terms of actual dollar (okay pound) amount. But in 2025 the amount of the grant is going to increase by 40 million?
Or is the increase going to happen next year and bc the CE is making so much with the windfarms that he’s getting more money right away?
I do want to point out that the SG and duchy of lancaster are two separate things (I know you two know that, thats just a general comment.) So he’s getting more from the SG AND more from the duchy of lancaster.
Slimmed down monarchy my foot.
Smaller % of larger pie = absolute increase.
From Guardian:
“Lord Turnbull, a former cabinet secretary, Whitehall’s most senior civil servant, who was involved in official discussions over royal financing, accused the Treasury of seeking to obfuscate how the monarchy was funded.
He said that linking the royal finances to the profits of the crown estate was “silly” and was motivated by a desire to promote the idea that the king was paying for himself and was reducing the burden on the taxpayer.”
What Brits seem to be confused by with their method of monarchy supports is that income withheld from the public purse (SG, Lancaster, Cornwall), makes public financially worse off. Obfuscation, yes 🤑
All the Lords and Masters of the House and stuff need to get bonuses and pay rises! I hear the late Queen had more than 450 staff. Remember some were grumbling during Covid when they were forbidden from visiting family.
I remember reading in Spare that when Harry told his father Meghan would quit acting to do ‘the job’ alongside Harry, his father pushed back saying he couldn’t afford to support he and Meghan as well as William and Cate. Harry was shocked. He explained that’s Charles’ job: they do the work for the Crown and his father supports them. They had no other income otherwise.
I go back to what Tyler Perry said: they were abused in every way, including financially.
Horrible people. I’m so glad Harry is free of them.
Its amazing how every single day they prove how right Harry was to get his family out of there. They can’t help themselves apparently
Isn’t that the truth. It’s right there, for everyone to see, and yet England doesn’t. I don’t get it, there is nothing special about any of them.
With the Royal Family making so much money privately they should not be getting money from the State.
Point blank. Period. Abolish the monarchy.
#AbolishTheMonarchy
Err, if they’re making money privately then aren’t they half-in as well as half-out?
I have no fondness for Charles. I think of him as a toad (that’s the G-rated version). However, according to the NYT’s article, he raised rents by 3%. That’s only a half percent more than my last rent boost and I live in a rent controlled building! (Our next rent raise is 2.5%). The article goes on to note that this 3% is less than what is being done in the private sector.
I can think of dozens of things to ride jug-ears about but a 3% rise in rent is not one of them. I’d love to know what “market price” would be on the same properties.
my issue is that it shouldnt even be his property. it should be ours. feudalistic land ownership should stop.
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Can’t argue with that. But I think at this point in time, the best that could be wished for would be ALL of the rents etc go into the treasury. I can’t see any way to just forcibly take the properties away. Let him “own” them but totally hands off. Government can set the rents; collect the rents; and do the required maintenance. (Chuck can pay HIS rent too.) Government then gets the money. Also, I would think the government would not allow them to remain empty.
Ooh! Saint Chuck raised rents at lower rater than other private sector landlords. But wait, you forgot to demonstrate comparability of tax rates between Chuck and other landlords. Chuck rate = 0%.
Ding, ding, ding!
Charles did not have to pay inheritance taxes and he has lots of properties and residences of his own.
Or pay for his mother’s funeral or his conanation! This latest money grab is obscene. We’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis. We can’t afford to give rises to doctors, nurses and teachers but we can give a small fortune this greedy cruel king and his heartless queen. The country is going to the dogs!
The fact that he has all these properties and money and left his second son with nothing. This is why for all his faults Willy is a better father by far to his children than Charles, because William will never disinherit his children
How do you know? William has no problem cutting people out of his life if they disappoint him in any way. That could include disinheriting someone.
William is currently exposing his young children to the media more than Charles and Diana ever did. And he’s doing it in an environment where media is more invasive and global.
That’s not being a better father, especially when he knows exactly what it feels like to be media fodder.
I think William would disinherit his children in a heartbeat, or cut them off the way Charles cut off Harry, if he thought it could be used to control them, bring them in line, keep them under his thumb (all of which were factors in Charles cutting off Harry’s security so abruptly, he thought it would bring Harry back); or if he felt that one of the kids ever “betrayed” him like Harry “betrayed” the Windsors by……choosing happiness over misery, I guess.
Well, that’s a ridiculous proclamation. Claiming a person you don’t even know will never do something is not credible.
To be fair, William has watched how the ‘institution/firm’ operates and how cut throat it is. He and Harry made a pact in their youth to never operate their offices (and by extension, their lives and how they treated others in the RF) the way his father and the rest of the RF offices operated. He will have the survival of the monarchy on his shoulders someday so what would he do if he needed to bring one or more of his children in line? Likely, he’d do what he’s learned by being in that bubble. And by all accounts, William sounds like a hot head so it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he treated one of his children the way his father has treated Harry. Do we know for sure he’d do that? No, of course not, but he’s been raised in a system/firm that is extremely dysfunctional and ruthless so it stands to reason he would behave the same way. I hope I’m wrong.
@:Lizzie – who thought Charles would cut his son’s security? Even a friend of mine who really doesn’t like H&M thought it was wrong for him to leave the family vulnerable! So, although I’d like to think William wouldn’t do something like that to one of his children we can never say never.
Charles really does believe him being king rights all wrongs! Camilla and now this. It’s like he doesn’t want to be a real king.
The proper thing would be to not raise rents. He is the king and he is suppose to care about the people. He doesn’t need the money. And if he needed money he should’ve asked for some windfarm money. He could’ve made the politicians look incompetent with a well run Duchy.
The only upside for William is he can roll back the rents and look like a humanitarian/genius.
There is such thing as a fair salary compensation for all jobs including that for king and prince of wales,
The current method of pegging the sovereign grant on a percentage of the profits of the crown estate (owned by the State) is overly generous. On top of that they enjoy income from the 2 duchies to the tune of 40 plus million pounds per year is too excessive for a single royal family to command. And don’t forget, the cost of security is borne by the Metropolitan Police
Not to diminish your well thought-out post, but you said “pegging”. *snicker*
The man is a Billionaire.
Wealth hoarding A-Hole.
When the pandemic first started and people had to quarantine my university said if you were not an essential worker and had to stay at home they would cover everyone’s salary. They did this for about 3 months. No one got a merit increase that year but we were fine with the sacrifice and the following year merit increases resumed. A university did this because they recognized we were living in unique times and they could afford to be humane.
This King just inherited a fortune and it was not taxed. In addition to that he has “private” wealth and public funding. Neither he nor his team thought the humane and smart thing to do would be to keep the rent the same during a cost of living crisis? It would be providing concrete help, endear himself to his subjects and be good PR.
Does anyone remember how Disney’s Robin Hood animation started? The King’s men going through town to collect money from impoverished subjects? From the outside looking in that’s what this looks like to me.
The Times article presents this in such a passive way: “Rents in the United Kingdom are rising at a record pace, a trend that helped the nation’s most famous landlord, King Charles III, make a big payday.”
As if the Duchy rents were raised not by Charles, but by the market. It was the result of a trend, you guys — not Charles actively making a decision to screw the Duchy tenants.
Charles certainly puts the douche in duchy.
It’s entirely possible that Chuck’s duchy is a driver of the rent increase trend. Or combination of Chuck’s and Willy’s duchies. They’re absolute masters at turning those duchies into shape shifters. They change how they’re defined on the fly to suit 👑
Charles is making out like a bandit and has more homes than most people have pairs of shoes.
While Charles will be making a smaller % of the Crown Estates, he will still be making 45% more than this year. It’s obscene.
Yes–what is the point of a “slimmed down monarchy” if that isn’t resulting in monetary savings?
Exactly. Someone should ask this very question to the King Douche/ Cash-Hoarder-in-Chief. Make him at least pay tax on his cash in-take AND property taxes. Why aren’t they rioting in the streets over there???
Charles is the very definition of the word ‘louche’.
Let’s not forget the bags of cash Chuckles received from a billionaire Qatari politician, ostensibly a “charitable donation”. My arse. I’m sure Chuck took a large portion of it as a donation to himself.
That man is swimming in bags of cash, real estate, stolen jewelry, and the people’s taxes. And make no mistake, he will take more until there is nothing more to take.
When someone is that greedy, they can never have enough. That’s why Chuck & his Ho look so unhappy, in spite of getting what they always wanted – it will never be enough.
This endless, horrid wealth hoarding by Charles and William, when they are Billionaires and keep getting richer every way they can as the tax payers of the UK do without, is truly getting my anger levels up!
H&M are well out of it!
I used to criticize the Royal Family, labeling them greedy and insensitive. Even though my opinion of them hasn’t changed, I’ve come to accept that most people in that country prefer to have an outdated monarchy and ultra-conservative government fleecing them than to have control over their destiny. Charles doesn’t care about the members of his immediate family, least yet the peasants. As long as they continue to buckle, bow and pay, he’s happy. May the NOT MY KING protests continue to grow.