Prince Harry, Meghan Markle ruffle feathers with hefty expenses on Montecito home

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have been tangled in criticism since quite a while after they stepped down as senior members of the British royal family.

And now after the couple is well-settled in their new luxe abode in Santa Barbara, California, many royal fans and critics have blasted the Duke and Duchess of Sussex for using taxpayers’ money to spend on their new home.

While the two bagged their lucrative deal with Netflix after they purchased the home in Montecito, they were earlier getting funded by Prince Charles.

Graham Smith, CEO of anti-monarchist group Republic said to Express that the couple should repay the British taxpayers.

"The fact that they can spend the average person’s annual salary every month on their mansion means they have plenty of money to repay the taxpayer for all the things we funded while they were living here as working royals. That includes security and other costs around the wedding,” he said.

"It also includes rent that they should be paying for Frogmore Cottage. They have now paid for the renovations as they say they are keeping it as their house to live in when they are here,” he added.

"Is that being paid at commercial rates? Why have they still got that house available to them? Any suggestion that they can’t completely make a clean break from a tax-funded lifestyle is clearly nonsense when they are spending this kind of money on their own home,” he went on to say.

He went on to demand that the pair make public the amount they are paying to keep the Frogmore Cottage.

"Frogmore does not belong to the Royal Family it belongs to the Crown Estate. So, Meghan and Harry should never have been allowed to have that home and they should have paid for the renovations up front,” Smith said.

“They were done to their specifications and so that they could live there. Ok so they have now paid for it, they have said they have done so because they can now afford it,” he continued.

"They could have always afforded it, so their excuses are a bit rich. They are apparently still going to have use of that house, exclusive use of that house,” he went on to say.

"So, we need to know what rent they are paying and why the Crown Estate allows them to retain that property when they are not living in it,” he added.