King Charles takes control of $27 billion royal estate

King Charles will receive a huge inheritance after his mother’s death – but it might not be as big as many people think.

The British monarchy has assets valued at around $27 billion, mostly in real estate, including a number of castles and palaces. The king, like his mother Queen Elizabeth before him and his successors later, receives income from many assets. However, you do not have personal, legal ownership of these assets and therefore cannot sell them.

Instead, the assets are held by a variety of quasi-public duchies and estates, each with their own executives and boards of directors, and whose financial reports are published annually. The duchies and estates generate revenue, much of which goes to the government, with a not inconsiderable sum given to members of the royal family.

Less well known is Queen Elizabeth’s personal wealth, most of which is said to go to King Charles free of inheritance tax. But two US news outlets that measure the wealth of the world’s richest people have tried to estimate it.

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Forbes, which has been publishing a list of the world’s richest for years, estimated their wealth at $500 million last year. The figure includes cash and investments, other assets such as art and jewelry, and two properties she personally owned: Sandringham House, which King Edward VII bought in the 1860s, and Balmoral Castle, owned by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband. acquired in the 1850s. The Queen died at Balmoral Castle on Thursday.

In 2016, Forbes quoted a luxury Czech real estate agent specializing in historic buildings as valuing Sandringham House at $65 million and Balmoral Castle at at least $140 million.

How much is the monarchy worth?

Value of Crown holdings. In billions of dollars

The Duchy

from Cornwall: $1.2

The Duchy

from Lancaster $,757

The Crown Estate

from Scotland: $0.573

Buckingham and Kensington Palace values ​​are March Forbes estimates,

2021. All other holdings are last year’s net asset values

Reports and converts to USD at 1.16 per pound.

Globe and Post, Source: FORBES; annual reports

How much is the monarchy worth?

Value of Crown holdings. In billions of dollars

The Duchy

from Cornwall: $1.2

The Duchy

from Lancaster $,757

The Crown Estate

from Scotland: $0.573

Buckingham and Kensington Palace values ​​are March Forbes estimates,

2021. All other holdings are last year’s net asset values

Reports and converts to USD at 1.16 per pound.

Globe and Post, Source: FORBES; annual reports

How much is the monarchy worth?

Value of Crown holdings. In billions of dollars

The Duchy

from Cornwall: $1.2

The Duchy

from Lancaster $,757

The Crown Estate

from Scotland: $0.573

Buckingham and Kensington Palace values ​​are Forbes estimates as of March 2021. All other holdings are net asset values

from the last annual reports and converted to USD at 1.16 per pound.

Globe and Post, Source: FORBES; annual reports

Bloomberg, which also developed a ranking of the world’s richest, puts the Queen’s fortune at $400 million. As part of the calculations, Bloomberg used a 1971 statement from her former private secretary, John Colville, estimating her fortune at £2million, and a BBC report of her £70million inheritance from the Queen Mother in 2002, and adjusted them to the two figures for inflation. Bloomberg also appreciated the value of her horses and her stamp collection, which is said to be the largest in the world.

Unlike Sandringham House and Balmoral Castle, Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace are not personally owned by the royal family.

In March 2021, Forbes valued Buckingham Palace at $4.9 billion. However, in 2016 it conceded that the property is “a residence that most pundits describe as almost impossible to value” and said the palace has been “widely valued in the £1billion range”. (One British pound closed at around $1.16 on Friday.)

Forbes valued Kensington Palace at $630 million in March 2021.

With net worth of £16.46 billion as at 31 March, the Crown Estate is the largest of four entities to own royal property not personally owned by the family. It is an independent trading company established by Act of Parliament in 1961 to manage its land holdings and seabed in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It posted profits of £313million in the 12 months to March 31 and said it had contributed £3billion to the public coffers over the past decade.

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The Crown Estate puts 15 percent of its profits into the so-called Sovereign Grant, money that goes to the royal family. The money – £86.3million over the last two years, according to the BBC – will be used to pay for royal duties, events and travel. According to the BBC, almost 2,300 official engagements were carried out last year.

Other minor units, separate from Krongut, include:

• The Duchy of Cornwall, founded by Edward III in 1337. was founded to provide income for his son Prince Edward. As of March 31, the company had net worth of £1.05 billion, including farmland, commercial and residential properties and some smaller royal family residences. It brought Charles £23m in distributable profits in the 12 months to 31 March. (The Duke of Cornwall is a title traditionally held by the eldest son of the reigning British monarch and is now passed to Prince William.)
• The Duchy of Lancaster, a collection of commercial and residential properties that has been considered the personal property of the reigning monarch since 1399, although the estate is held in trust for future monarchs, so the reigning king or queen has no access to its capital. His income – £24million in the 12 months to March 31 – covers the royal family’s private expenses through an allowance called the Privy Purse. The royal family pays income tax on the distribution. The duchy had a net worth of £652.8 million as of March 31.
• Crown Estate Scotland, which formed legally as a separate entity in 2019, is a mix of land, ownership and things like wild salmon fishing rights. It had assets of £494.3 million as at 31 March 2021. (It has yet to report its most recent results for the financial year.) It generated £11.5m for the public sector in the year ended March 2021.