Dec 31, 2009, 12:03 GMT
Britain?s Prince Michael of Kent is to start paying £10,000 a month rent for his Kensington Palace apartment.
The prince, cousin of Queen Elizabeth, sparked outrage in parliament in 2002 when it was revealed he and his wife, Baroness Marie Christine von Reibnitz, paid only a token rent on their five bedroom apartment.
The amount paid by the couple was rumoured to be as low as £69 a week, when, at the time, the palace itself took £1 million in public money to maintain each year.
Members of Parliament demanded the couple pay full rent, although they countered the queen had given them the use of the apartment in the palace as a wedding present.
Michael said then: "We pull our weight for the family and the country. And we do it because we feel we are privileged, and privilege doesn't work without obligation... The public view of us is trivia and uninformed.
"I feel it's gone on long enough. People assume our lifestyle is paid for by someone else but it's paid for by us."
The queen stepped in and agreed to pay the annual £120,000 sum for the apartment - which also includes a walled garden, roof garden and courtyard designed by Sir Christopher Wren - on her cousin?s behalf for seven years, a deal which comes to an end tomorrow (01.01.10).
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