Naturally, financial resources are a very important issue in the renovation of cultural monuments or buildings in heritage areas. As in all matters, including property, the same principle - ownership is binding - applies, thus the owner bears the main responsibility for the condition of the property. This applies fully also in the area of cultural heritage. However, as preserving cultural heritage is also in the public interest, conditions for financial assistance to owners in the process of renovating or protecting the cultural heritage are prepared every year.
The option to grant contributions is established directly in the Heritage Act, in §16, which states that owners of cultural heritage may be awarded contributions towards the increased costs associated with preserving or renovating the objects, on the basis of applications submitted by them, with the objective of providing a greater benefit to the public, or if the owner of a cultural heritage object has insufficient means to cover the costs associated with preserving or renovating cultural monuments.
Contributions are provided from various programs, from regional or local funds.
It is necessary to emphasize that the National Heritage Institute cannot provide any contributions; it is not an executive organ of state administration; in fact, it also has to apply for funds to renovate for the properties under its care. This does not mean that the NPU is not involved in the process of distributing contributions.
Contributions are naturally awarded solely for such repairs and interventions that are in concurrence with heritage conservation, observe methodologically correct principles, and are strictly necessary. For this reason, a standard part of the application is generally either a direct recommendation from the NPU, or a binding statement from an executive organ of heritage management, issued on the basis of written assessment of the NPU. Employees of the NPU usually sit on the committees set up by the authorities granting the contributions (in order to be transparent), or are asked to join such a committee because they have direct experience of the concrete case, and are also capable of effective assistance in recognizing priorities. In practice the requests for providing contributions in total usually exceed the means of the individual contribution funds.
Details on the provision of contributions for the preservation and repair of cultural heritage are defined in Decree No. 66/1988 Coll., where the documents necessary for registering an application for contributions (in sections §11-15) are clearly described. They include in particular a closer specification of the type, scale, method, and planned timescale for the intended work, as well as the contracted price or expert estimate of the cost, including specification of the work relevant to the application, and photodocumentation of the current technical condition of the historic object or its parts according to the type and scale of the work planned, and finally any further relevant materials.
Clear information on grants and contributions currently available is given for example on the website of the Ministry of Culture under Grants & Subsidies (in Czech). As general conditions differ slightly from year to year, and the deadlines for individual programmes also change, we recommend studying the detailed information (in Czech) directly on these pages on the website of the MKČR (Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic):
1. Restoration Programme for Movable Cultural Heritage
2. Support for Renovation of Cultural Heritage via Municipalities with Extended Competence
3. 'Support for UNESCO Heritage' Programme
4. Support of Civic Associations in the Heritage Care
5. Emergency Programme
6. Regeneration Programme for Urban Heritage Reservations and Urban Heritage Zones
7. Architectural Heritage Rescue Programme
8. Programme of Care for Rural Heritage Reservations, Rural Heritage Zones and Landscape Heritage Zones
Similarly it is necessary to scan the up-to-date information on regional authority websites.
For example, for the Capital City of Prague the information is shown (in Czech) on the webpages http://pamatky.praha-mesto.cz/GRANTY and http://pamatky.praha-mesto.cz/POTREBUJI-VYRIDIT.
General information and consultation on financial assistance is provided by employees in every department of the NPU, who will also recommend up-to-date contact information to the authorities that grant the contributions, and in some cases directly to their website with the current application forms.