Prince William under pressure amid claims rental homes on the Duchy of Cornwall’s land are riddled with mould and don’t meet minimum legal energy efficiency standards

Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall has been accused of behaving like a ‘rogue landlord’ as furious tenants claim they are living in freezing houses riddled with mould.

Dozens of rental properties owned by the £1 billion business empire do not meet the minimum energy efficiency threshold that landlords must meet, according to a study.

Some have no central heating, causing temperatures to drop sharply during the winter months, while one is known to have only a wood-burning stove and a coal fire heating only two rooms.

The royal estate is owned by the heir to the throne and has more than 600 rental properties, making £23.6 million in profits in the last financial year.

William, 42, would pay income tax on the full amount, although annual accounts published in July did not say how much he paid.

Channel 4 Dispatches’ more than year-long investigation into the Mirror The newspaper found that one in seven of the 500 residential rental properties identified in the Duchy have a low energy performance certificate rating.

Of these, 50 were rated F and 20 were rated G, including six properties with the lowest EPC score of one point out of 100.

Since April 2020, properties subject to minimum energy efficiency standards cannot be rented if the rating is below E – unless they have a valid exemption.

Landlords will not have to pay more than £3,500 per property to improve energy efficiency.

The Duchy’s private estate was created in 1337 and many of the buildings are more than a century old.

In photos published by the Mirror, the corner of a room and the back of the wallpaper are covered in black mold. In another, brown spots can be seen on the ceiling.

One tenant, speaking on condition of anonymity, has mold on soft furnishings and clothing, but claims the Duchy will not fully insulate the property due to the cost.

“But you don’t want to say anything to your landlord for fear of eviction,” they told the Mirror. “There could be consequences.”

Others have been told their homes are uninhabitable as others use blankets to combat the bitter cold.

One tenant claims he was not allowed to have double glazing because ‘Prince Charles doesn’t like it’.

“Well, he doesn’t have to live here,” they snapped back.

One person told the Dispatches programme: ‘It gets terribly cold in winter, I can only heat two rooms in my house. The Duchy doesn’t understand.’

Another said: ‘The house is cold and it’s a struggle, but there’s no other place to live here… When the wind blows the curtains start to sway. There’s no heating upstairs at all.’

Claire Williams, 53, lived in a former farmhouse in Essex, where she says she struggled with cold and damp during the 20 years she lived there.

She was evicted last week due to rent arrears from 2005, which she disputes, but had previously allowed the Mirror into the house to take photos.

One photo showed black mold caked on the baseboard and on the bottom half of a wall under peeling white paint.

“I’ve been complaining about it for 21 years,” she said. “The repainting happened about a week before I moved in, so you couldn’t see it.”

MailOnline understands that a surveyor visited the property in May and found it was not properly heated or ventilated.

Jonathan Bean, of pressure group Fuel Poverty Action, said: ‘It is a shame that a billion-pound royal estate appears to be behaving like a rogue landlord.’

A spokesperson for the Duchy of Cornwall told MailOnline: ‘The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate with a commercial need that we achieve alongside our commitment to restoring the natural environment and generating a positive social impact for our communities.’

‘Prince William became Duke of Cornwall in September 2022 and has since committed to a large-scale transformation of the Duchy.

“This includes a significant investment to make the estate net zero by the end of 2032, as well as establishing targeted mental health services for our tenants and working with local partners to help tackle homelessness in Cornwall.”

Last year, William received around £6 million from the Duchy for becoming Duke of Cornwall midway through the financial year following the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

The Duchy had also asked to retain an additional share for the day-to-day management of the estate.

Meanwhile, there were also revelations about King Charles making millions from the cash-strapped NHS, according to a shocking investigation into secret royal finances by Channel 4 and the Sunday Times.

The Duchy of Lancaster, a property empire that provides the monarch with a private income, is charging an NHS trust at least £11.4m in rent to store its ambulances over the next 15 years.

Bombshell documents reveal the Duchy earns £830,000 a year from renting a two-storey warehouse to Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London.

The Duchy of Cornwall also receives rent for Dartmoor Prison, while the Ministry of Justice pays £37.5 million.

Charities have paid millions to rent a 1960s office building in London. These include Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie Cancer Care, where Charles is a patron. The research also found that private homes rented out by both duchies do not meet minimum energy efficiency requirements

The unprecedented audit of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall, the Prince of Wales’ private estate, has revealed that taxpayers are spending millions every year to increase the wealth of the senior royals.

It is not just the NHS but also the Ministry of Defence, local authorities and other public bodies that are increasing the coffers of the Duchies, a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation aired last night revealed.

Charities – even those of which the king is a patron – are also bringing in millions, the five-month investigation into more than 5,000 land holdings and properties shows.

The Duchy’s money is a private income for Charles and William, on top of the Sovereign Grant, which will pay the royal family £132 million next year, a 50 percent increase on this year.

The duchies are run as commercial enterprises but pay no capital gains tax or corporate tax. Both Charles and William do pay income tax, but how much is not clear.

Dame Margaret Hodge, former chair of the Public Accounts Committee, led calls for greater transparency of the royal finances – and to tighten the tax regime.

The Duchy of Lancaster, which raised £27.4 million for the king last year, and the Duchy of Cornwall do not have to pay business taxes.

Both estates claim they are not funded by the taxpayer, but the pile of documents obtained by Dispatches and the Sunday Times expose the huge income they receive from public services.

As reported in the Daily Mail, the Duchy of Cornwall said it is ‘a private estate with a commercial need… committed to the restoration of the natural environment’, and said it was ‘acting in a responsible and sustainable way’ in terms of mining .

The Duchy of Lancaster said it ‘operates as a commercial company’ and ‘complies with all relevant UK legislation’.