Blocking access to a piece of land

If you own the land surrounding another parcel, I have read several times that one cannot close off access to a piece of land by surrounding it with prims. That is considered a TOS violation, or has been treated as such in the past.

However, is it permissible to ban the owner from my land?

I have a neighbor who rarely comes into SL, and isn't very neighborly when he does. Over the years I have bought up most of the land in the sim and all of the land around his parcel. It is a piece of green hillside, nothing special about it, except now it is in the middle of an area I would like to use. I have offered repeatedly to buy his land or even swap water front land for his. He once said he would think about it, but since has not responded and has ignored my repeated polite IM's and offers.

Now he has turned on his ban lines, it seems just to make it more irritating for me. I don't see any reason I cannot do the same to him, ban him from my land, but I have not done so yet as I prefer to try to be decent about this and negotiate a fair deal for us both.

If all else fails, am I entitled to ban him from my land?

It has been my experience that escalating tit-for-tat rarely comes out in an agreeable manner.

I used to go through all this heartburn back on Federal of asshat ancient accounts who never logged in and never wanted to sell - yet would leave half finished builds on their land for years on end.

Odds are that nothing you are ever going to do will get him to sell, so you either learn to live with him by ignoring or decide to buy a sim where you can controll all the land. You know which route I chose....

You absolutely may ban him from you lands. The problem is that they hold the upper hand in this situation. They have less to lose and more to gain. You have more to lose and less to gain. I have several time dealt with the situation where my lands completely surrounded someone else's plot. They are in a great position to force your hand and extort you into buying their plot at an inflated price. Your best weapon is patience. Sooner or later they will have a need to sell or desire to leave SL entirely. When that happens, you will have the upper hand and be in a position to get the land at a reasonable rate. Stay calm, take the high road and sooner or later you will have what you desire.

Given that you have been repeatedly asking him to sell, then you have to be extra careful not to be seen to be trying to harass him into a sale.


If he's banned you, then I can't see that he can complain about you banning him.
He can TP into his land.

If it's the case that he's got something ugly in there - and ban lines are the ugliest of ugly then why not screen him off or build around him?
If it's just screens, then make sure they are phantom and transparent on the inside.

If you build around him it could happen that he would put something on the edges of his parcel - like hovertexting prims. Your only option there would be to try an AR on the basis that they are harrassment. If you responded with the same, it wouldn't affect him as you say that he's rarely in.
I really wonder if LL would tell someone not to build within x metres of a boundary that surrounded someone.

If he's got ban lines up then you have absolute justification for screening off his ban lines. (IMHO)
Just screen him off. Forget about that space. Don't even think about contacting him again. He'll tire of tier eventually.
It might happen then that an opportunist would get their hands on it and try to manipulate a sale at a high price. Record everything that happens. Rinse and repeat the waiting.

Add:
Get a screen shot of the About Land of his parcel, showing the ban.
If he removes the ban, and then complains, you've got a record of your reason for screening/banning him.

He is an older account, so I expect he is one of the ancients that got is 512 sm free for life, or he just pays the annual membership so it costs him no extra tier.

I have been in this sim for close to 2 years and have patiently waited out most of the ancients who owned land there. I'm paying almost as much tier as it would cost for me to own my own island, but there are things I like about being part of the mainland.

I agree there is probably nothing positive to gain by escalating the situation. I'm just speculating on what my options are.

Id say you havn't learned anything new in this thread you didn't already know lol. I can empathise in that I have the exact same problem.

No answer here other than what we already know, of course you can ban him. Another issue is that many others have taken to building or rezzing junk on the little used parcel creating an eyesore. The last time the owner was around it appeared he had no idea how to rid them and was gone quickly after deleting a few one by one before I could instruct him on how to do it more efficiently.

I even rezzed some heavy prim items on the parcel to fill it to prevent others from continuing using it as a dumping ground.

I can only sit by and watch knowng that one small 16m never to be sold according to its description sits in the middle of the little used parcel so even if I'd ever get him to sell or abandon his parcel I'd still have a problem lol

Hi Arch

As someone who is on the other side of this kind of situation, let me fill you in from my perspective.

First, let me commend you for going about this in a nice manner. That, is something I wish I would have encountered. Ban lines, being the least of the issue.

I have been peacefully living in a lovely, waterfront sim for about 6 months. However, in this timeframe, a person moved in who has continously bought up every single inch of the sim whenever he can.

I happen to own 7, 512 plots. 5 of them are adjacent and comprise my home and the other 2 are just prim land a few lots away.

This person, has had banlines up to me almost from the day he moved in. For no reason. He did put them down for a short period. But, after he approached me about switching my decently located prim land for 2 of his landlocked plots under the guise of wanting more waterfront and water bordering land so he could "beautify the sim", I said "no", the banlines went up again. We also had a very heated argument over this and some other things.

In the meantime, a neighbor sold his land to him; land which I would have bought but again, this guy managed to squeeze in first.

/me sighs deeply.

The other day, he puts boulders and a horrible looking house literally on the property line of our plots, forcing me to move my "island" over to the east and now blocking my western sunset views. Then, yesterday, the house - suddenly is covered by some kind of screen and looks like an half circle of vines. WTF?

Additionally, he also has put up giant tropical screens around my prim land - literally blocking me and another neighbor in completely (someone he's been trying to also buy the land from for ages). The land is now just a giant swimming pool surrounded by walls of plants.

This person, has been doing everything under his power to force me to leave.

End result? I bought another piece of land this week. I caved.

However; I'm not so sure I'm giving up that land to him so quickly. I have it empty right now, because of the upcoming Forum party being thrown there (I offered my place for it). Makes me kind of happy knowing he's probably wondering what is going on, why is it empty but not for sale? Hopefully salivating for the day it shows up "yellow".

I don't even know IF I'm going to sell. I just might hold on to it. I love the place, and that small evil part of me likes making him miserable because of what he has put me through (believe me, I have not gone into half of it, there is plenty more and I never did a single thing to this person. I was always pleasant and friendly to him, until recently).

My point is that people who are forced from their lands start thinking of ways to retaliate sometimes. I'm not one of those people in RL - far from it. I'm a pussycat. Actually, I'm a pussycat in SL too but this really is bringing out a whole new side of me. Ban lines are the least of your worries. As others have said, most likely you will have to just wait this one out, or find another place to go.

If you 'd like to see for yourself what I'm talking about, IM me when you see I'm online next week. I'd be happy to show you what I'm talking about. It's almost comical

Hang on to that land.
He'll be gone soon enough. In the meantime, you will have opportunities to mess with his mind. It's OK to do it because he's behaved like a jerk.

Your story got me to getting together some images and text from a time when a major sim landholder tried to elbow me out of a nice protected water parcel.

I'll come back with a funny story later

I'm not sure why a resident wishing to hang onto their own parcel, declining to sell, and doing whatever they wish within the perimeter of their own parcel (including restricting access to outsiders) constitutes "being a jerk."

I'm detecting the usual sense of unearned entitlement within this thread: Someone owns something that the OP wants (and feels, subjectively, that they can make better use of it). The problem is someone already owns it.

Advice: Be patient. Rome wasn't burned in a day.

YAY Elex is back!!!!!!!!!!

I would also probably cave in after a while as it is usually not worth the hassle but if you can afford the tier, hold on and see if you can make him pay heavily for the land. I would price it at L30-L40/m and see if he takes the bait.

Yes!

And even more wonderful - he's turned the entire thing completely back to front in order to maximise confusion.




Options:

(1) Elex is trolling
He quotes me talking about the jerk who is griefing Elora, and pretends that it refers to the person that Arch is dealing with.

(2) Elex is a tad lacking in his ability to understand fairly simple stuff.

Either way, Elex is back.

Hi Elex!"
What kept you so long?
And why TF did it not keep you longer?

I don't know who Elex is - but I noticed the mix-up also!

That's exactly what I intend to do Alt

Elex is kinda like Ricardo, except the rumor is he has the TOS tattooed on his ass. (They both make me look reasonable and diplomatic )

He's actually got the TOS tattooed on his retinas.
He knows all the words but he doesn't know what they mean.

If you own land that completely surrounds another plot, you cannot place bans that prevent that landowner from accessing his/her land on virtual foot.

You can place bans that prevent others from visiting your land but you have to name him/her as an exception with free access

The landowner that owns land surrounded by another can just carry on with no restrictions on his actions other than Lindens TOS

The above assumes you own land blocking access on all sides. If for example you only owned land on three sides, none of the above applies. Ditto private island estate, there it is up to the Island estate owner to decide rules

That is my understanding folks, I had some personal experience of this issue a long time ago in Federal (mainland Sim) That Sim (then) did contain some charter Second Life land owners, who were once able to pay $199 (once off payment) for a lifetimes access to Second Life as a premium member being able to own 4096 square meters of land with no tier. A very few Sims (from Da Boom going east to Federal) have a few landowners like this as far as I am aware as they were the very first Second Life Sims up

bad neighbors suck in SL and RL. been there, done that for both. in SL i moved. in RL i plotted an evil scheme, and THEY moved. LOL

i wish you both (Arch & Elora) the best in these situations.

/me waits patiently for Ricardo and Elex to have a little spat.

/me prepares Ricardo's "Pro-Forum-Moderator Camp" T-shirt.

It depends on the Linden that comes out. But with PTP teleporting, there should be no need to allow foot access.

Curious tho, what if you never remembered to landmark said site? And then find yourself not able to access your land?

If I had not remembered to landmark my prim land, there would currently be NO way for me to get there. I can't fly or walk in - ban lines surround the whole area.

Just throwing out a "what if", for arguments sake.

My land or Group land tab, both will show you.

"That is my understanding folks, I had some personal experience of this issue a long time ago ..."
I can well believe that this (unwritten?) rule existed in the past, when people had to TP to the nearest Telehub and then walk/fly.
I suspect that the situation has changed with a SL in which people can TP at will and offer TPs to others to join them in a location.

A four-sides rule would not be effective anyway as two or more people could work together to block all four boundaries.
If that were a black-and-white rule, then anyone stuck with an other-owned parcel in the middle of their land would have to leave an unbuilt walkway open through their land for the benefit of the enclosed landowner. Alternatively they could build completely around it but would have to leave a tunnel for the enclosed landowner to walk through.

What about a 16m parcel in the middle of small parcel?
Would a tunnel/corridor have to be built to allow access on foot to the 16m parcel?



It could happen that all four sides could be blocked simply because adjoining landowners had set up bans completely independently.
What happens then? The effect on the enclosed landowner would be exactly as if a single landowner had enclosed them. It would seen unfair if their access rights were any different.

What if the enclosing parcel is in turn enclosed by ban lines on all sides?
Would that/those enclosing landowner(s) have to in turn allow access on foot?

What then if an enclosed landowner cut his parcel into a set of 4m wide concentric hollow rectangles and sold each rectangle to a friend? A 1024 parcel could be cut to have three separate landowners completely enclosing a central 8x8.
That would be four separate people requiring an access corridor from the the landowners enclosing the original 1024.



All of this would require a judgement call by LL. I suspect that they would not intervene in a situation unless they judged that the banning was solely to harass the enclosed landowner.
A history of pressing the enclosed landowner to sell could be an indication that such was the the case.

Duh! Another thing I should have known

You should be able to click on it via the map and teleport in.

John, Federal is probably the best example on the grid of assinine landowner behavior. Somewhere in 2004 the sim was cut up into various 16m parcels, 128m parcels, etc... It really sucks because Federal could have been the nicest of the old sims - being as it has Linden ocean on two sides. For some reason, prior to 2005 Federal was magnet for jerks and much of it still owned today by those same jerks.