The General Settlement Fund is a special state fund without its own legal personality, which is administered by the supreme monument protection authority, the State Ministry of Science and Art. Its financial endowment is based on Art. 21 BayDSchG; it is borne in equal parts by the Free State and the municipalities. The fund serves to satisfy compensation claims arising from expropriation (Art. 18 BayDSchG) or other significant material effects on property (Art. 20 BayDSchG), as well as to compensate for an unreasonable special sacrifice resulting from the preservation of a monument pursuant to Art. 4 BayDSchG.
Approval can take the form of grants and/or low-interest or interest-free loans. The type (grant and/or loan) and the concrete amount will only result from the so-called reasonableness test. This is carried out by the State Ministry of Science and Art as part of the General Settlement Fund procedure. Here, on the basis of the financial and economic circumstances of the monument owner (and, if applicable, his relatives affected by the measure), it is examined to what extent the implementation of the repair measure would lead to a burden on the monument owner, which would have an effect beyond the scope of the social obligation of property (Art. 14 Para. 2 GG) and must therefore be compensated. For the so-called reasonableness check, overviews and documents (also of a tax nature) on the respective property situation as well as the respective current income/expenditure situation are to be submitted. It is also examined to what extent refinancing is possible, for example with regard to future possibilities of use for the building monument or with regard to future reductions in income tax due to increased tax deduction possibilities. All amounts stated in preliminary discussions are non-binding until final approval by the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments.
For grants of EUR 250,000 or more, a special condition is that a notarized, limited personal easement for the preservation of the monument be entered in the land register (except for rooms used for religious services). In individual cases, the granting of funds from the General Settlement Fund is linked as a special condition to a value compensation clause in the notice of granting. According to this clause, in the event of a sale of the monument within a set period of time (usually 45 years), the owner of the monument must pay an appropriate compensation to the General Settlement Fund.