Meghan Markle<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Prince Harry<\/a>‘s former\u00a0Frogmore Cottage<\/a>\u00a0home in the U.K. remains empty more than a year after the couple was asked to vacate.<\/p>\n On July 24, The Royal Household published the\u00a0Sovereign Grant Report<\/a>\u00a0for the 2023-2024 financial year, unveiling the partially taxpayer-funded sum spent to support\u00a0King Charles<\/a>‘ official duties and maintain the occupied royal palaces. Curiosity around the status of Frogmore Cottage in light of the new report prompted the palace to clarify that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s former residence is still empty.<\/p>\n “I don\u2019t think, at this point, I would speculate on who will be the future occupants of the cottage,” an official said at a briefing, according to\u00a0The Independent<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n “The Sovereign Grant has been fully reimbursed for the refurbishment costs of Frogmore cottage when it was initially provided to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and, therefore, there is no cost to the Sovereign Grant other than some routine maintenance, but it would be required for any of the buildings.”<\/p>\n Prince Harry, 39, and Meghan, 42, lived at Frogmore Cottage from 2019 to 2020, upgrading from their two-bedroom\u00a0Nottingham Cottage<\/a>\u00a0on the grounds of Kensington Palace in London before the birth of their first child,\u00a0Prince Archie<\/a>, in May 2019. The family of three moved out of Frogmore after the Duke and Duchess of Sussex stepped back from their working royal roles in early 2020. The Sussexes briefly stayed in Canada before settling in Meghan’s home state of California, where daughter\u00a0Princess Lilibet<\/a>\u00a0was born in 2021.<\/p>\n In March 2023, a spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex\u00a0told PEOPLE<\/a>\u00a0the couple had been asked to leave the residence.<\/p>\n “We can confirm The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been requested to vacate their residence at Frogmore Cottage,” the spokesperson said at the time.<\/p>\n It has been speculated that King Charles wants his brother, Prince Andrew, to vacate his Royal Lodge residence on the Windsor Castle grounds and move into Frogmore Cottage.<\/p>\n Frogmore Cottage was understood to be a bit of a fixer-upper, and royal biographer Ingrid Seward previously told PEOPLE the property was “pretty dilapidated<\/a>” before they moved in.<\/p>\n The home was built in 1801 under the direction of Queen Charlotte and the property was extensively renovated for Prince Harry and Meghan, with construction that took it from a former staff residence into a single-family home. The renovation became a hot topic when they announced their decision to step back in 2020 because the renovation was paid for by the Sovereign Grant, funded from taxpayers.<\/p>\n When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their plans to step back in 2020, they\u00a0made clear<\/a>\u00a0their wish to repay the Sovereign Grant for the Frogmore flip. Buckingham Palace said that the residence would “remain their U.K. family home.”<\/p>\n Prince Harry and Meghan “fully covered<\/a>” the renovation cost of Frogmore, which was reported to be around $3 million, later that year. The offer to settle their debts was made “proactively” by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, a source told PEOPLE at the time, adding that the couple wanted to ensure that there was no ongoing drain on public monies as they worked to become financially independent.<\/p>\n It’s standard practice for the royal residences to be renovated if necessary before new tenants move in. It emerged in 2014 that the Sovereign Grant paid\u00a0over $7 million<\/a>\u00a0to refurbish\u00a0Prince William<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Kate Middleton<\/a>‘s Kensington Palace apartment, including expensive asbestos removal.<\/p>\n In June 2023, Prince Harry and Meghan were\u00a0officially out<\/a>\u00a0of Frogmore Cottage.<\/p>\n “We can confirm that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have vacated Frogmore Cottage. The Duke and Duchess have repaid the expenditure incurred by the Sovereign Grant in relation to the renovation of Frogmore Cottage, thus leaving the Crown with a greatly enhanced asset,\u201d Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Michael Stevens said in recent briefings. The last of the couple’s things were shipped out to their California home,\u00a0The Sun<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported at the time.<\/p>\n Can’t get enough of PEOPLE’s Royals coverage?\u00a0Sign up for our free Royals newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest updates on Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle and more!<\/strong><\/p>\n After Harry and Meghan settled in the U.S. in 2020, the Duke of Sussex’s cousin\u00a0Princess Eugenie<\/a>\u00a0and her husband\u00a0Jack Brooksbank<\/a>\u00a0moved into Frogmore Cottage<\/a>\u00a0before their first child, son\u00a0August<\/a>, was born in February 2021. In 2022, the couple began to\u00a0divide their time<\/a>\u00a0between the U.K. and Portugal after Jack got a new job abroad.<\/p>\n When Prince Harry and Meghan visited England in June 2022 with Archie and Lilibet for\u00a0Queen Elizabeth<\/a>‘s Platinum Jubilee, they stayed at Frogmore and celebrated their daughter’s first birthday with a\u00a0backyard party<\/a>\u00a0there.<\/p>\n The Duke of Sussex\u00a0stayed at the cottage<\/a>\u00a0in June 2023 when he traveled to London to testify against Mirror Group Newspapers for alleged unlawful information gathering. He\u00a0won the lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0later last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new Sovereign Grant Report raised speculation about the status of Frogmore Cottage Meghan Markle\u00a0and\u00a0Prince Harry‘s former\u00a0Frogmore Cottage\u00a0home in the U.K. remains empty more than a year after the couple … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1266"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1266\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/usdailys.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/016-1-300x181.png\")
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