This may not be a popular view, post-Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ghastly ex-wife, but isn’t it time to leave the Royals alone? Another row has broken out, this one about the wholly upstanding Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, to the effect that Prince Edward is paying only peppercorn rent on his 51-acre Surrey home, Bagshot Park. But, and here’s the thing, in 2007 he paid £5million for a 150-year lease. Isn’t that actually totally normal?

When I bought the flat in which I lived for 25 years, I paid £168,000 (in 1998) for a 110-year lease. Apart from a small ground rent, that was it. I had paid for a leasehold on a property and wasn’t expected to pay rent to anyone. There were other costs such as management and service charges, but otherwise? Nothing. That is what a lease is.

Real rea

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