 In 1972 the California State Legislature passed the Mills Act so they could pay you to preserve and renovate your historic home. But you don't need to read all of this to find out how. Today we're going to talk with Bill Tweek of the Vallejo City Planning Department. He's going to tell us how it's done. The first question that people probably have is, does my home have a historic home? Does my historic home qualify? Well, your home has to be listed on the city's historic resource inventory. We have many homes already listed, however if your home is not listed you can hire a preservation professional and have that person do the research and then the home can be added to the list. That fee for that service usually is two to three thousand dollars. Not every kind of project you want to do will qualify. However, Bill gave me the formula. You can piggyback restoration that wouldn't normally qualify under the Mills Act with other projects that would so you can do both. Well just to back up for a little history the Mills Act was created to improve neighborhood so a lot of the activities that you would list on your Mills Act application would be improvements that are shown outside the house that the neighborhood would see so the neighborhood improves. So this means focus on the outside of your house. Landscaping, siding repair, roofing repairs, wooden window repairs, but also add in the stuff you want for yourself. If you just applied to the Mills Act, for example, to remodel your kitchen that wouldn't be enough although a kitchen remodel could be included as long as there's enough other activities and improvements on the exterior of the house to show that improvement. Okay, so the important point that everyone wants to know, prove to me it's worth it. How much am I going to get paid? We can't give you an exact figure but houses that are higher value that have a higher tax rate of course benefit more because it's proportional. Those people with a very low tax rate say for example you paid $100,000 for your house 25 years ago, they benefit much less because it's a proportional. I would say that you'd probably be saving 30 to 40 percent on your county taxes after the Mills Act is instituted. We can't, the city can't give you an exact amount because it's something that the county assessor has to figure out after the program is approved by the city council and your application is sent to the county and recorded. Full disclosure, the Mills Act requires a 10-year contract. This can seem intimidating. Also, it's not like you're locked in. It's just that, you know, if you want to keep getting paid, you have to keep doing the restoration and preservation. How do we deal with the fact that if I want to get out or if I want to sell my house? It's transferable if you choose to do that, but if you want to cancel it, it can be canceled. It just takes notification to the city and the county and the contract can be canceled and regular taxes will be assessed. Okay, so there's somebody watching this. They either own a historic home or they're thinking about buying a historic home. Obviously, they're considering the preservation, the cost of preservation and they're thinking, you know, how much effort is it really? How hard is this really? And I guess we should say that the preservation work is the absolute hard part, but you know, tell us the truth. There's a fee, you know, there's paperwork, there's bureaucracy. Well, you'd have to come up with what you want to do, what the improvements you want to make. You have to have that list prepared. There is a fee that the total fee in the city of Vallejo is $1,000. Every city in California might be a little different. So what I have to do as a user though is I have to fill out an application, forget what I want to do, pay $100 up front and then $300 a year for the next three years until it gets to $1,000. And that's it? That's the paperwork. Let's sum this all up. Don't miss out on the money the government wants to pay you to preserve your historic home. So help the government give you money. In Vallejo it costs $1,000 to participate and your home has to be on the city's historic registry. If your home is not listed, you can get it listed for $2,000 to $3,000. Some people can save $20,000 to $40,000 over the course of 10 years. Paying to get your home listed might be a deal breaker, but many homes are already listed. So check with the city. Payment through the Mills Act comes in the form of property tax rebates. So if you have higher property taxes, the savings can add up quickly. If you bought your home years ago and have a very low tax basis, the $1,000 cost and the effort may mean the Mills Act isn't worth it for you. The hardest part is to draft a plan for the work you want to do for the next 10 years. You need to focus your work on the interior as well as the exterior. If you reach out to the city planning department, they'll help you draft your plan. If you want to cancel, you can. If you sell your house, the contract runs with the home, so the new owner could use it or cancel as they choose. The city is available to help you with this process and in the written section of this blog, you'll find additional resources. My most important job is to encourage you. Using the Mills Act is easy and you can do it. We're all here to help each other. So if you have Mills Act experience, please share what you know in the comments section. A few years ago, I started reaching out to neighbors to help them with various issues relating to our historic homes. As I took notes and spoke to local experts, I began to think about how I could best share what I know. The result has become Vallejo Historic Home Support, a video blog series meant to encourage preservation and increase our enjoyment of living in historic Vallejo. It's been a tremendous labor of love and I'm excited to share it with you. I'm Chris Jacobson, a local Vallejo Realtor and I love our historic homes. Your comments and questions are important to me. If you have Mills Act experience, please share what you know. I read every comment and I hope to hear from you there.