Meghan and Harry’s £11m ‘forever home’ could reach £3m a year in sky-high running costs, expert warns
THE annual running costs of Prince Harry and Meghan's palatial “forever home” in Santa Barbara could cost as much as £3million, experts warn.
This week, it emerged the royal couple had purchased a sprawling nine-bedroom mansion in upscale Montecito, California.
Justin Rubinstein of real estate firm Compass told the news outlet that maintaining the garden at a palatial home could “easily eclipse” £76,000.
He said: “Landscaping is always important because who wants to spend $10million on a house and have an unappealing facade or front yard?”
Mr Rubinstein also says mansion owners should set aside cash for emergencies because “eventually, there will be a flood, or an electrical issue, or a roof repair”.
He said: “Whether you save money each month for that, or you just risk it and wait for something to happen, it's definitely an invisible cost.”
Jennifer Leahy, of real estate firm Douglas Elliman, says large homes can have maintenance costs of around £8,000-a-month.
But the biggest expenditure that Harry and Meghan have is security after they reportedly hired elite company GDBS to protect them while living in LA.
He also dismissed reports saying Prince Charles had helped them with the purchase, saying: "Finding a house in the middle of a pandemic is difficult, but they were able to find a peaceful home in Santa Barbara.
"A home that they have bought with their own money.
"There's been a lot of speculation about Prince Charles potentially funding this.
"But this is really a moment for them to find their independence. They've done this on their own."
Records show that the couple bought the mansion from a Russian oligarch who previously owned the “Scarface estate”.
The Sussexes bought the home from a limited liability company partly owned by Russian tycoon Sergey Grishin.
Grishin is no stranger to big real estate deals in Montecito after he owned the sprawling mansion made famous by the 1983 gangster movie Scarface.
He sold that iconic property, which in the past hosted the likes of Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein, for £9.3million in 2015.
Harry and Meghan's palatial pad, known as The Chateau, was bought by Grishin in 2009 for £19million.
But he has struggled to find wealthy buyers able to meet the asking price.
It was eventually listed again in January, for around £13m and sold to the royal couple for around £2m under that asking price.
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According to real estate agents who spoke with the LA Times, the deal was closed in an “off-market” sale in June.
Tax records for the mansion match the limited liability companies previously created by Meghan, it has been reported.