While the entire royal media ecosystem obsessively stalks every single move made by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, the current king of the United Kingdom is making very odd and secretive real estate moves to protect his wife, the sidechick queen. Some history… when then-Camilla Parker Bowles divorced Andrew Parker Bowles in the 1990s, she wanted to live somewhat close to Prince Charles’s Highgrove estate. They found Ray Mill, which Camilla allegedly purchased with her divorce settlement from Andrew PB. I never believed that – I think Charles purchased Ray Mill for Camilla, or at the very least, he helped her purchase it. Camilla has kept Ray Mill all of this time – it’s her sanctuary, and she stays there constantly to get away from King Charles. In recent years, Camilla has had concerns about her neighbors and/or security around Ray Mill. So King Charles purchased the adjacent property…?? From Richard Eden’s Daily Mail column:
Despite the profound shame that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has brought on the Royal Family, his elder brother continues to provide him with free accommodation at Sandringham, as well as servants and an annual stipend to cover his living costs.
King Charles is, I learn, even more generous with his wife, Queen Camilla. Newly published documents reveal that the monarch spent a staggering £3.75million on buying the house next door to her country retreat, Rey Mill. That’s even more than was previously thought and a vast increase on the £675,000 paid by the previous owner eight years ago.
The King established a new company to buy The Old Mill in Reybridge, Wiltshire. Land Registry files disclose that it was bought last March by a company called Frisa Nominees Ltd. It was set up the previous month, with Buckingham Palace its correspondence address.
The directors of Frisa Nominees are two royal employees: James Chalmers, Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to the King, and Catherine James, of the Private Secretaries Office at Buckingham Palace.
When it was disclosed by The Mail on Sunday last year that the King had bought The Old Mill, which shares a private lane with Rey Mill, a source said he had used ‘private funds’ amid fears that it would be sold and turned into a wedding venue. Limited companies are often set up for property purchases to avoid taxes and for inheritance planning purposes.
However, a palace source insists that the new company is ‘standard practice as part of the administrative process for the property’s purchase and ongoing management’.
Earlier this month, I disclosed that ownership of the Queen’s beloved Rey Mill, which she bought in 1996 for £850,000, following her divorce from Andrew Parker Bowles, had been discreetly transferred. Its new registered owners are her son-in-law, Harry Lopes, and the financier Jake Irwin. A friend of the family told me that Lopes represented his wife, the Queen’s daughter Laura, and Irwin represented her son, Tom.
The pal explained: ‘It is not best practice in such circumstances for beneficiaries to be trustees themselves.’
Basically, Charles and Camilla are already making big plans for their estates – Camilla is leaving Ray Mill to her daughter Lara and Lara’s family, and Charles arranged to buy the neighboring property at a vast sum, just so Camilla and her family wouldn’t have to share a driveway or be bothered by a wedding venue next door. Using palace employees as directors on the real estate purchase seems to indicate that Old Mill was not purchased using private funds, but some hidden royal funds, likely from the Duchy of Lancaster. Whenever we get a glimpse of how “generous” Charles has always been with Camilla and her family, it just serves as a reminder of how cheap he’s always been with his sons, especially Prince Harry. What Camilla wants, Camilla gets, I guess.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
