As Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson prepare to leave Royal Lodge, Chris Riches says their scandals have shattered their daughters’ inheritance.

Sarah Ferguson, Andrew, Eugenie and Beatrice at Royal Ascot (Image: Getty)

It was the Reverend Jesse Jackson who said ‘Your children need your presence more than your presents’. Princess Beatrice and sister Eugenie are avoiding the former, and now unlikely to get the latter! The scandals and post-Jeffrey Epstein shame swirling around Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Sarah Ferguson prompted King Charles to say ‘enough is enough’ and strip them of their royal titles.

But Charles went further than that – he is turfing the pair out of Royal Lodge, on the Windsor estate, and that’s where the two princesses missing out bit comes in. The one-time Duke of York had held a 75-year lease on the 30-room property since 2003, after signing a £1m long-term agreement with the Crown Estate.

The 65-year-old was said to have harboured hopes of eventually handing the lavish property – which he had refurbished for £7.5m – over to his daughters in time.

But as the father-of-two prepares to move into an alternative home on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, property expert Elliot Castle, of We Buy Any Home, said the door for any potential inheritance has now closed “entirely”.

“[This] would only have been possible while the lease remained in place,” he shared. “Once that lease is surrendered or terminated, there is nothing to pass on. From a property standpoint, that closes the door entirely.

Royal Lodge has been the scene of protests over Andrew (Image: Getty)

“Royal Lodge would revert fully to the Crown Estate, with no residual claim for Andrew or his daughters.”

The 75-year lease also specified that the walls of the mansion must be repainted every five years “with two coats of paint”, while inside the house, the ex-Duke was forced to “paper, polish, decorate and otherwise appropriately treat” every seven years, starting from 2010.

Included in the terms, Andrew agreed to “permit the landlord [Crown Estate] and persons authorised by the landlord at all reasonable times upon reasonable notice to enter upon the premises to ascertain whether the tenant’s obligations herein have been complied with and to examine their state and condition and use and to take a plan or prepare a schedule of fixtures or a schedule of dilapidations and to make valuations”.

But it’s now been claimed Royal Lodge was not inspected by a Crown Estate official, not even once, in the 22 years that Andrew has been living there.

Royal Lodge is worth £30m and passing the mansion onto his daughters would have been like them inheriting a small fortune … not that Beatrice and Eugenie are short of a few bob anyway.

Andrew lost all his titles over his links to Epstein (Image: Getty)

Mother-of-two Beatrice wed childhood friend, and English-born property developer, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. He’s descended from Italian nobility, and the founder and chief executive of Banda Property.

Her official title is HRH Princess Beatrice, Mrs. Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, and as a Counsellor of State she can still potentially carry out official duties while King Charles is abroad or unwell.

Working in the private sector as a strategic advisor for the software company Afiniti and her own advisory firm, BY-EQ, she does not need royal links to climb the ladder.

They currrently live in a £3.5m farmhouse in the Cotswolds.

While married mum-of-two Eugenie – or HRH Princess Eugenie, Mrs Jack Brooksbank – is director at the Hauser & Wirth art gallery in London. She and her husband currently live in Ivy Cottage on the grounds of Kensington Palace in London and also have a home in Portugal.

‘Inheriting’ Royal Lodge may have been another layer of fairytale to their already privileged lives but missing out will not affect them.

In fact – with Andrew’s shame seemingly seeping into the very foundations of the place – it would only have been a poisoned chalice that tainted their innocent families and children too.