A number of idyllic-looking homes in estates owned by King Charles and Prince William do not meet energy standards for rentals<\/p>\n
Royal estates rent out homes that fail to meet legal energy efficiency standards<\/p>\n
This summer, the duchy of Cornwall got a new-look website with a bold statement of intent at the top: \u201cWe\u2019re on a mission to become a world-leading impact organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Updating the website will have been the easiest part of that mission. Upgrading hundreds of ageing, mostly rural, rented cottages, farmhouses and country houses will be one of the hardest.<\/p>\n
For many tenants, it will be long overdue. One, who is in failing health and struggling to heat a mostly uninsulated home where the only source of warmth is coal-fired stoves, said: \u201cThis place is not up to the standards of the 20th century, let alone the 21st. It\u2019s archaic. It needs to be upgraded but I don\u2019t think they want to spend the money.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is money. Established in 1337 to provide an income to male heirs to the throne, the duchy of Cornwall is unburdened by many of the taxes faced by other landlords, such as corporation tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax. It enjoys profit margins of about 60% and pays out more than \u00a320m a year to the monarch\u2019s eldest son.<\/p>\n
Changes are afoot: the duchy announced earlier this year that it would be selling off 20% of the estate over the next decade and investing \u00a3500m in local communities, housing and environmental projects.<\/p>\n
Prince William, four years into his tenure as the 25th duke of Cornwall, has promised to transform his inheritance: \u201cThere is so much good we can do. I\u2019m trying to make sure I\u2019m prioritising stuff that\u2019s going to make people\u2019s lives, living in those areas, better.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, the same tenant is not convinced he will benefit. \u201cI\u2019m sure this is one of the properties that he will sell and I don\u2019t know what will happen to me after that,\u201d he said. \u201cWill they have to find somewhere else for me or will I just be turfed out?\u201d<\/p>\n
It is the dilemma facing many duchy tenants, most of whom are reluctant to speak out, in parts of the country where the housing crisis is being keenly felt.<\/p>\n
Many properties in these areas \u2013 including those owned by the duchies \u2013 have been turned into holiday lets. Combined with an abundance of second homes, there are few other rental properties available for tenants.<\/p>\n
At first glance, some of the duchy cottages look idyllic. But many were built cheaply, over the centuries, for the agricultural working poor. The older ones are stone, the relatively newer ones typically a single skin of brick. They are often clustered around farms, but some are the towns and villages dotted throughout the duchy\u2019s heartlands in Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Dartmoor.<\/p>\n
Time and again the same complaints surface \u2013 the duchy doesn\u2019t like to spend money, repairs take an age, friends are envious, but the homes are cold, winters hard.<\/p>\n
They are not the kind of properties that make it into the duchy\u2019s glossy annual reports, which under William have been renamed \u201cimpact reports\u201d. The homes that feature tend to be the newer-built developments at Poundbury in Dorset and Nansledan in Cornwall.<\/p>\n
Commercial investments now make up over half of the duchy\u2019s income, but the homes it owns will only become a bigger headache as standards for rental properties are raised.<\/p>\n