Tenant wants refund

I have some residential and commercial rentals on the mainland. I have a tenant who rented both a house and a store. After a couple of weeks he said he found another place to live and asked me if I could credit the unused house rent to the store which I did. Now he wants to close the store and get a refund on the rent there. The unuesed rent is over $900L. Should I refund the rent, just half of it or none of it?

I'd refund it all, in absence of any kind of agreement stating otherwise. And seriously, 900L? That's a small price to pay for the goodwill of someone who may come back someday.

Well, when they rented, did you give them a notecard stating that rent is "un-refundable"?

If not, it's a business choice you will have to make.

I'd go ahead and refund it. Landlords who put their tenants first are a commodity in SL, and he may well look you up again in the future.

Not to mention,refer you to his friends. A lot of my past tenants were referred from others that lived there.

Also a point to consider is how did he ask? Nicely or was it a mere "gimme back!"?

I refund 100% of unused tier for my mainland renters but none of my estate. Of course, I'm clear up front about whether refunds will be forthcoming or not. This is a situation that comes up a lot in rentals so you should have a policy in place for it.

Try not to pay attention to how questions are asked. It can be a real kick in the teeth to refund people who are mean to you or especially if they say they need the cash so they can afford some other rental elsewhere but swallow your pride and do the right thing.

In the absence of an existing policy, I would refund them the entire thing and then set in place a policy where there is a refund fee, or no refunds at all, depending on your financial situation.

Now that your name will come up in a search of these forums regarding giving refunds, think how it will look to potential renters doing a background check on you to find that you did not give a refund?

Strong recommendation not to ever refund, if you have any significant holdings.

Your inworld income-based tier reserves for your lands are the last, best security for everyone on those lands. Once you offer full refund, your reserves are only as good as people's whim.

Otherwise... "Look, there's something Shiny over here... whee, no consequence *at all* - let's go!"

'New' stuff trumps just about anything on the grid anywhere for about 30 days, and there is always something new coming out.

Many, many residents cherrypick the best of SL, sort of surfing from one fad to the next. And that's wonderful! But it can't be allowed to harm those who have settled in your area. Pretty soon the remaining residents feel a bit nervous, and think: should they stay too?

Also, may you never need to enforce your land covenant. With a full refund policy... you can't. It's their way, or the highway... for both of you. Which ultimately places risk on all other residents doing business with you.

This may sound a bit tough, but it's a matter of taking care of those who stuck with you and support you. Yes, it's very important to do your finest for those who may one day come back. But never at the expense of those who stuck by you.

Proper risk management is the #1 thing you can do to help those in your region, for the stability, strength and permanence of the land under all their feet. With a full refund policy, your financial reserves can be hit hard overnight. This may be no big deal if you have 1/4 of a region or suchlike, but if you have any kind of significant operation it is a disaster waiting to happen.

I too always refund, if its an instant cancel it would be 100%, otherwise it depends on the total sum left ...most cases roughly 60%


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I say in the rental agreement no refunds, but if someone asks I always refund. Goodwill goes a long way in second life, and it always comes back.

I think the best advice here is to have a refund policy, which systems like Hippo allow you to have. Having said that I don't have one!

Desmond makes a fine point about this though, refunding generally costs the landlord money, advertising costs, time left unrented yadda yadda yadda.

I'd refund this time but consider the future implications of such a policy. The best thing to do really is to have a refund policy.

Agreed. The first time is always a learning experience for all involved. I would definitely keep Desmond's advice, though. He's a smart cookie and has been doing this for years. He's the owner of the micro-continent of Caledon, (check it out some time, it's cool!) and has had scads of renters.

I felt the effects that Desmond talked about around 15 months ago. People just started leaving on a whim, to get estate land or buy land of their own, or other personal reasons (breaking up, etc.) and the refund policy ended up taking me under the breakeven point for that month. That's what happens when you offer cheap rentals with low profit margins.

After that, I wised up quickly and instituted a no-refund policy (and I also expanded business to get the full sim tier rate). To hedge against major losses, I also limited the amount the boxes can hold to 3 weeks. I would hate for someone to change their mind and lose almost 2 months of rent or some ridiculously high number.

I have given refunds on a case by case basis, but only in extreme circumstances or an immediate refund because of a mistake. Otherwise, I treat people the same and don't show any favoritism. That burned this one person who moved out on a whim, twice, but I think being fair to all my tenants is more important than showing favoritism to one person.

Echoing sentiment:
- Give a full refund in this case.
- Come up with a policy for handling refunds in the future, state the policy in your rental agreement so it's clear to new tenants.

If you choose to go the refund route:
- Think about keeping an ample reserve of L$ in your account (I have a fixed minimum of L$ I always keep on hand. I keep all my tier reserves in USD.) to address refunds.
- Think about limiting the max. number of weeks/months tenants can pay for ahead of time. SL transaction histories only go back 1 month, so you'd better have some way of accounting other than the web site, or limit the number of weeks tenants can pay ahead of time so you both know what's due, and have ample L$ on-hand.

Yeah, if your covenant doesn't make it clear, it's pretty important to state 'no refund' up front if that's how you are going to handle it.

And even in such cases, if someone changes their mind in ten minutes, come on, refund 'em anyway. But after a day or so, nope, no returns. Doesn't take long for a fly-by-night resident to block plenty of other good business that wouldn't have refunded.

I do have a maximum time you can rent which is 8 weeks. But he had rented a house for 8 weeks which is $250L a week and transfered that into his small store (which he already rented for 8 weeks) which is $80L a week.