In addition to her estate, the death of Queen Elizabeth II raises the question of her financial legacy. The queen is said to have accumulated nearly 370 million pounds…
The death of Elizabeth II leaves an entire people in mourning and places a new sovereign, her son Charles III, on the throne of England. But as in every family, questions of succession – in the pecuniary sense of the term – will also quickly arise for the royal family. Elizabeth II’s personal fortune was estimated at £370 million by The Sunday Times shortly before her death. A comfortable fortune but far from the billions of the greatest fortunes of the United Kingdom and the world. Elizabeth II and now the royal family did not have and do not have all of this sum, part of which is managed by the British government. This did not prevent the queen from being pinned in the Paradise Papers scandal in 2017, a large-scale investigation into tax optimization practices around the world. Associated media estimated that around ten million pounds of assets had been placed in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, overseas territories of the United Kingdom treated as tax havens.
The strictly private part of the fortune of Elizabeth II is difficult to estimate, being mainly made up of a heritage with rather vague outlines. In it are the castles of Balmoral in Scotland, valued at around 100 million pounds, and Sandringham, in Norfolk, valued for its part at 50 million pounds. Residences which, despite these impressive figures, are in reality very expensive according to the book “The Queen’s True worth” by David McClure, which attempted to detail in 2020 the actual possessions of the queen. Elizabeth II, whose passion for horses was known, also had a personal stable having brought her over the years more than 7 million pounds according to the equestrian site myracing.com, quoted by AFP.
Several other assets, including royal collections, would complete this heritage, including a collection of stamps started by King George V. The distribution of this fortune within the House of Windsor after the death of Elizabeth is not yet known. .
Heritage and income linked to the crown
Another heritage can, only in part, be added to this private heritage of the sovereign, whether it is Elizabeth II or her son Charles III: “The crown estate”, is the gigantic fortune of the British Crown this time, including a “colossal park of land, real estate, wind farm licenses” indicates AFP. Revenue from this heritage is paid into the Treasury, but 15% directly benefits the royal family through the “sovereign grant”, an annual allowance intended to cover “expenses related to official activities representing the Queen or members of his family”, in particular the 500 employees placed at their service. This reached 86 million pounds, or 99 million euros, for 2021-2022. But this sum includes an exceptional extension granted for ten years for the renovation of Buckingham Palace (34 million pounds for 2021-2022).
Other subsidies are planned for the crown and for the royal family in general, which should now directly benefit Charles III. The “privy purse” thus designates a share of the revenue drawn from the assets of the Duchy of Lancaster. An area comprising “hundreds of real estate, high-end commercial properties, and thousands of hectares of agricultural land”, writes AFP again. Assets that have been the property of royalty since the Middle Ages. Estimated at 650 million pounds, the Duchy of Lancaster would have offered an income of around 24 million pounds to Queen Elizabeth during the last fiscal year. A sum that she could, after taxes, redistribute as she pleased to other members of her family or use to maintain and restore her castles of Balmoral and Sandringham.
Valued at some 3 billion pounds, the famous Crown Jewels, for their part, symbolically belong to the Queen but are automatically passed on to the next monarch.