Sim owner gone AWOL - what happens?

This relates to a privately-owned non-mainland sim that a non-profit group I work for rents land on.

It appears that the owner of the sim deleted his Second Life account two months ago, and wrote to Linden Labs request his account be cancelled, and received confirmation that it had been. He didn't tell any of the renters on the sim know, and so we have all carried on as normal as the sim has still been there. Rent has still be paid to the (deleted) sim owner through pay on his profile or via hipporent boxes, and has gone through with no error or warning that the account no longer exists. He is still listed as sim owner in the Region/Estate info panel, although his avatar name is not found in search.

Questions:
1. Why is the sim still there if the sim owner no longer has an account and therefore is no longer paying sim tier?
2. Where has the money paid to the deleted account gone?
3. Will Linden Labs just delete the sim, or will they try to sell it? If they delete it, will they return objects on the sim to their owners or delete them too?
4. It's been two months since the sim owner left. How long is it likely to be before LL acts on this?

I need to know this stuff to advise the non-profit group of how quickly we need to find alternate land, plus I also have a store on this sim, although that's of lesser importance - I'd stopped paying rent a while back anyway as the sim owner hadn't replied to IM's I sent him regarding the land, and all my items are copiable, not the case with the non-profit. It all seems a bit odd to me, that LL have done nothing despite no tier payments and no sim owner account, and that somehow payments are allowed to go through to deleted accounts.

I'd be grateful for any knowledge regarding this, or if anyone has encountered anything similar.

Thanks in advance

If there was US$ in the account's balance, then the island fees would be automatically drawn out of that till the account hits zero, or perhaps beyond that, depending on the effectiveness of LL's billing software. When an account is deleted it stops appearing in search but I don't know if it's ever truly erased from the database. If you are paying the rent with L$ through inworld rental boxes etc that L$ does go to their account, even if it is deleted. There's no way though for that L$ balance to automatically turn into US$ to keep the island going. If you are paying them US$ through paypal or whatever... that's outside of SecondLife.

Eventually LL will realize that they aren't being paid for the island any more, and the island will vanish from the grid, along with everything rezzed on it. You and any other residents who have lost stuff with the island, can contact support and in these cases, they usually will put the island back for a few hours on one occasion, so everyone can go and take up any property they have. The island will then be deleted.

-Atashi

(edited for clarity)

First off Skinkie, you and you group better start backing up all your builds and work on your sim *NOW* if not yesterday. Get yourselves a rez-foo or a rez-faux or a builder's buddy and get cracking before you lose all your work. LL will give you no warning as you are not the sim owner.

Fact: When LL deletes a sim they also delete all its' content. They do not return anything. If you're very lucky they might roll it back for a few hours to allow you to pick up your stuff but don't count on it.

The money you have paid into the rentomats could well have vanished down a black hole. Don't count on anything in your favour.

I hope you manage to back up all your work and find yourselves a better landlord next time. ALternatively your group could buy a sim. The market's fairly depressed so you could pick up a second-hand sim for a rather good price.

Thanks for your replies.

I'd already started backing things up/removing non-copy items just in case, but that truly does suck - how hard would it be for LL to just return all items to their owners?. I also suspected that the money has disappeared, but I need to inform the non-profit group later today, and it'd be nice to have some answers/facts to give them.

We have other places offered to us to move to thankfully - one of our ways of working means that sadly the group buying a sim isn't an option although we could probably afford to do that, certainly an open sim. At least we have found out it's going to happen in time to remove our stuff, and not just woken up to find it deleted.

Sometimes...

When doing a profile check it may not be there, but the person is. Have you contacted LL in regards to the region owner being still in the system?

I haven't checked anything with LL as yet, I only was given this information late yesterday. The sim owner hasn't been online or replied to IMs (which he would usually do promptly) for about the timeframe stated, 2 months. His name is still in my friends list, and his profile accessible via the friends list, but if I search under "people" for his name, there are no returns. As I'm not a sim owner myself, and don't have a premium account, I'm not sure if I can send a ticket about this? But I will try to contact LL about it, that's a good idea, thank you.

As someone said...

1> The owner's account may have had a US$ balance on it, in which case it will continue to pay for the island until it runs out.

2> I have seen LL put islands back for tenants to retrieve property. This occurs only once for a small amount of time. Anything remaining after that is gone.

3> If you are paying to a rental box, the money could be then distributed to other accounts. There is no way of knowing.

4> If the money is going to the previous owner (now a non-existing account), I have heard that money payed to those accounts are reconciled at a later date and money returned to payers. I have heard this is one of those mysterious Linden Grants that appear in your history occasionally.

If the avatar were deleted, the profile wouldn't show up under friends list, and would not be viewable. There is a "show in search" toggle button on each profile which prevents them from showing up under "people".

"Deleted" accounts will remain on your friends list until you remove them, their profile will remain intact until the end of time and even their group list will be what it was at the moment their account was disabled (although they won't show in the actual group member list).

"Show in Search" only affect the Search / All (web-based) tab, it doesn't affect Search / People.

If someone isn't listed in Search / People they're suspended, banned or cancelled their account.

Someone else can chime in if it's changed in the past year, but you used to go into a negative balance but since that would kick start an automatic account suspension after a while there's no pratical difference between "tier billed with a negative balance" and "non-negative balance with outstanding tier payment".