Moved out after the Epstein scandal, and compensated anyway: former prince Andrew will get more than 360,000 euros for Royal Lodge

The British Crown will pay former prince Andrew more than 302,000 pounds, or over 360,000 euros. The reason is the lease on Royal Lodge, the Windsor residence he moved out of in February. The lease has now been officially terminated - and terminating it, it turns out, comes with a price. The payment was announced by a Crown spokesperson.

It was a good day for Andrew in court too. A London judge ruled that the warrants to search his homes, issued in February, were unlawful because of a procedural error, and Thames Valley Police admitted the error in court. The man stripped of his princely titles got, in a single day, both an admission that the police got it wrong and a cheque for the house he moved out of.

The numbers behind the deal explain why the Crown is paying. The lease was signed in 2003 for a full 75 years. According to The Times, Andrew paid one million pounds for it plus another 7.5 million pounds for renovation. The rent was symbolic - what the British call a "peppercorn rent" - and according to reports, for 22 years he did not pay even that.

He left Royal Lodge in February, after months of public pressure over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, and moved to Marsh Farm, on the Sandringham estate. He left the house back then, but the contract is only legally closing now - and not for free.

Whose money is this? It is not from King Charles III's private pocket, but from the Crown Estate - the portfolio of land and property whose profits go to the British Treasury. Every pound paid to Andrew is a pound less for the budget. Buckingham Palace had earlier given assurances that royal money would not fund his brother's new legal battles. Technically, that promise has been kept. In practice, less money will reach the state.

How many times in the Balkans has an official left under a cloud, with the exit still paid for out of public money? The difference is that the British at least know the exact figure - down to the pound.