Do we have any rights as land owners in an estate?

My partner and I purchased land 1.5 weeks ago in an estate. It was after a long process of trying to find the most suitable land for us. We met with the owner of the sim and looked at several parcels. We told him we wanted mountains and ocean. He suggested a parcel that had canals on 2 sides, mountains behind both canals and one on the 3rd side, and an oceanfront view on the 4th side. We asked him what is going to happen with the ocean property and he said it will only be used for underwater housing - so our view would remain unobstructed.

We spent a lot of time terraforming the land, taking into acount the mountain and canals to enhance the land design. We have a small palace, so the ocean and mountains provided the utmost in privacy, as well as a stunning view.

That is what we bought!

Today, there was a restart in our sim. When we returned , we saw that not only was the ocean gone, replaced my many other mountain parcels, but even the mountains on our parcel had been modified. We no longer have the privacy, and have no ocean view.

There was absolutely no notice - in fact, there is still no notification in estate group.

When we asked the sim owner about this, rather than apologizing, he said "change in plans". We asked about the possibility of moving to one of the new parcels (not such an easy task), but he said he could not guarantee there would be no more parcels added next to those as well.

I fully understand he is the sim owner, but we purchased a parcel not even 2 weeks ago based on the selling points of the parcel. There was another parcel available that did not have the canals, but had 2 sides of ocean wall. Only a new region would obstruct that. But when the owner told us nothing would be going in our ocean water except underwater, we felt reassured enough to make the purchase.

Now, they are modifiying our parcel. Our house once sat on total dry land - and to make more waterways, part of the house is now sitting in water. The removed one mountain completely - no privacy whatsoever.

Do we have ANY rights? It seems the sim owner does not see anything wrong with what he did, but considering we "own" the parcel and pay him tier fees, it doesn't seem right that they can do that without any notice or offering us a refund as the parcel is no longer what was sold to us.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Dmitriy

Sorry D, but the only right you have is the right to leave. If you can sell the parcel, do so, but it may not be easy. Otherwise you can just stop paying the tier and abandon the plot. Either way, it sounds like you will be losing money.

I'm sorry you lost your dream home.

The only rights you have are in the Terms of Service (TOS). If the sim owner is an honorable person, you may have had a Land Covenant with him when you purchased the land. If not, it's strictly whatever understanding you two had, preferably in writing.

Go read the Terms of Service, found here: http://secure-web3.secondlife.com/corporate/tos.php

Look for any Land Covenants that came with your parcel.

Other than that, good luck sir.

The only rights that you would ever have under the current system would occur if you and the land owner had actually written a real document, signed it, notarized it, and faxed it amongst yourselves. There are no true legal laws in SL. There's no point in AR'ing the estate owner because it is after all his island; you're actually renting there. He has to pay the tier on the island, and is the legal owner of it through LL. He is leasing you space.

I know it sucks, and you got dragged into a sad situation. Maybe you can work out a new situation with the estate owner? Or just move on and start fresh, either with a new estate owner (one that has come recommended) or by buying land on the continents.

Where's that dang lawyer Trout? He needs to start up his own notary system, hehe.

Reputation counts for a lot. I'm pretty sure you could work out a settlement.

Here's what I think normally happens:

Someone buys a sim thinking it would be 'fun' to rent it out to friends, and so forth. And, well, sure it can be.

But sooner or later, the fun turns into a second job - logging in nightly to landlord-tenant disputes, drama, hunting for replacement tenants... all for maybe 150 bucks a month. Totally not worth it for the 'money'.

So there's a coupla things that can happen. One, the sim owner steps back and says: this is too joblike, I'll just make do, kinda break even and don't sweat it. Hobby. Other direction, they decide to get enough sims to make it 'worth it'.

I suspect that's what happened here. Also, underwater rentals are about as typical as, well, underwater rentals. Ever see people actively seek to live 100% underwater in large groups? It's kinda rare (I've never seen it as generally popular in 4 years of SL), and I suspect the whole idea just plain flopped.

Rights. Well. On the short term, a sim owner can get away with almost anything. On the long term: if they keep that up, they are generally toast. Can't treat people that way. I'll bet the rest of the tenants were watching and saw the whole thing.

With regard to 'ownership' - nobody owns anything, really. Ownership implies you can do what you like with whatever it is - and *all* sim owners have a parcel reclaim button and a ban list. Unless you had that and the sim owner didn't - I wouldn't call that 'ownership'.

Even the term 'sim owner' is deceptive. You might think you 'own' a sim, if you paid for it - but honestly, a 'sim owner' can get suspended or banned for whatever reason also. Hard to own something, when someone else can take it away at a whim.

I'd stay away from anyone that promises 'ownership' - because you just found out how little that phrase means on a private estate.

:qft: /agreed Ownership of private island parcels = illusion.

Its always a good idea to try to talk to some of the other residents on the island 1st....find out how long theyve been there, what kind of person the landlowner is. There are good and bad everywhere, some people have no scruples or integrity, where others would rather lose money than do something unfair.

Either buy or rent land on the mainland or RENT land on a private estate.

If conditions become unacceptable, sell up and move.

Is it easy for you to sell the land back? If not, sorry to say this but you are trapped which would be another good reason not to buy land on an estate where a tin pot dictator can make and change whatever rules he likes.

Sorry but with private islands .... you are pretty much at the whim of the island owner, Desmond is right though reputation IS important.... but to some maybe not so much.

Sounds like he has chosn to develope his land.... and remember...

View comes at a price, unless you own every parcel between you and the sea then he could do what ever he likes with it...including putting up a prim monolith.

Sorry

Marty

That applies to mainland also marty, in fact even more so, at least with a responsible and reputable estate owner you can pretty much guarantee that your views will be kept reasonably pleasant, height restrictions on building heights, walls etc....which you certainly dont get on the mainland

You make it sound like covenants actually have any value or mean anything.

A covenant is just a bunch of "feel good" words to trick people into thinking there is some kind of actual agreement while in reality a sim owner isn't in any way required to actually honour any of it.

A covenant may show the intentions of a decent sim owner, and empty promises for a scammer, but they're equally worthless when something goes wrong.

Good point Kitty, but thats true of the whole of SL...one day everythings peachy....next day, new update and you cant log in at all.

What is the #1 rule of real estate? Location, location, location.
How do we try and figure out what is a good location in SL? Research, research, research.

I am a so called land owner (which we all know I am nothing more than a renter with slightly more rights than a traditional renter, but with all the risks of loosing my initial investment) on a private estate island and while my situation sounds a million times better than the OP's situation, I am afraid I did not do enough research and I find myself living on a corner lot (the good) surrounded by nothing but ban line after ban line after ban line properties in this huge monster network in a series of private estate islands hooked up into one. I have IMed the estate owner and their assistant numerous times to be added to the estate group list and so far I have been ignored by them both. I have logged into their website and have browsed their so called "help" forums to be greeted with nothing but pronographic advertizing after pronographic advertizing posts from the residents of this estate network. My small little corner of this series of islands is nice, but I am surrounded by ugliness to my left and to the right and I will never get to know my neighbours because they have not only decided to erect 20 foot high walls, but they have also placed ban lines and they obviously do not want to get to know anyone other than themselves.

I have only myself to blame. I did not do my research into the island and the owner of the estate. I am an honest person, but when it comes time to selling (which could be happening very soon) I will only be hurting myself if I tell the prospective buyers my experiences with the estate. I might as well be on the mainland. The only thing that makes my small parcel of land better than the mainland is that I do have a corner ocean front lot (of course I can not really even use the water). But everything else is just ban line after ban line. What is wrong with these people? Why must they insist on building walls?

No as someone so correctly pointed out, the only rights we as so call land owners have on these estate islands is the right to leave. My estate owner sure as hell doesn't care about me when they don't even have the common curtiousy of adding me to their estate island groups list. Then again with all the pronography going on on their website, do I really want to be notified of the latest smut? For all the good I find in SL, there appears to be an equal amount of bad. I guess we as a society here in SL are just an extension of ourselves out there in RL.

The answer is that it all depends on the estate owner.

One of the main differences between mainland and islands is that your mainland plot gives you more tenure. Your position is the same (basically a renter with an up-front payment to acquire the right to rent the land, rather than what we think of in the material world as an "owner", but your landlord is Linden Lab, and therefore the likelihood of anything being done by the landlord with respect to your parcel is very low when compared to the risk you take when "buying" a parcel on a private island from another resident owner.

What you give up for that tenure, basically, is any concept of zoning or development restrictions, and on the mainland, neighborhood and neighbors are *everything*, whereas most private island sims have covenants about building sizes, commercial uses, security devices/ban lines and the like -- but you get those "benefits" (even assuming you do ... apparently some posters in this thread have had bad experiences even in those areas) at the "cost" of not having any tenure if the sim owner decides to redevelop and kick everyone out.

So if you are "buying" a parcel on an island sim, it's critical to do your homework about the estate owner -- talk to other "owner/tenants" if at all possible -- because that's your only protection really. Having said that, if you find a nice estate owner who has good and enforced covenants, owning/renting on a private island sim can be a very nice experience. If you want more secure tenure regardless of that, either (1) buy a parcel on the mainland (and be prepared for some interesting developments around you!) or (2) buy your own complete island sim in the land store.

You're correct. Actually, legally almost nothing can be forced in SL, except what the Lindens want. Even copyright holders have to go through an arduous task to enforce their copyrights. The better sim owners will uphold their covenants, but yes, the scumbags will just laugh at you.

Just like in SL we are at the mercy of LL and on a private Sim you are at the landlord's. I live on an island and fortunately the owner is someone I knew before hand. Most of the residents know each other from a couple of groups nd share some common interests. The covenant is basically pay you r fees and that's it. Fortunately anytime the landlord has made any changes that affect the residents he has always announced them ahead of time , and in most cases asked for our input, and even put it to vote.

But thats becasue you ARE a responsible and reputable estate owner Caroline *kotc* but there are some that arnt....

And its far worse on the mainland... thats for sure, but its the difference between dealing with anybody... as i said you only get what you pay for.

At the moment in my sim .. i have a loverly view, but thats only as long as somebody doesnt put something there

If you believe you have a claim, you're entirely within your rights to sue them IRL. Island owners can't be anonymous.

Estate owners need to be customer focused. When the estate owner only cares about themselves, the community will suffer.

There was another situation I read recently where a estate owner returned one renters items because another renter on the same sim wanted to expand. In this case, the estate owner made a split decision and returned all the guys things, causing the ejected rentor a mess in his inventory, not including a loss of funds on his build.

So as others have said in this thread, its best to get out of there. If this happened, its likely to get worse.

Sorry that you have to deal with that.

I just wanted to emphasize what Desmond said first: Reputation is important to estate owners, at least if they have any hope of being in it for the long haul.

The majors do take care of their renters. I'm glad I bought my island land where I did, and not from the person I was initially going to buy from. That person has disappeared from the grid entirely. But I am VERY happy with the way my current landlord manages his properties and conducts business. He is very accessible and willing to help out new and confused landowners.

Again as I read this thread, several people have started bashing sim owners as a whole, when you realize that you cant say one term or everyone, and that there is good and bad everywhere?

Instead of bashing every single sim owner out there why don't you in your eternal knowledge of sim owners give good advice on finding honest and reputable sim owners?

Heres the best way to find decent sim owners

1. Look at several land plots on a sim and see when they where claimed, chances are if you find alot of long term owners you have a good sim.

2. Read the Covenants, you dont know how much information you can gleen from a sim owner just by reading the wording of their covenants. Look for Covenants that sound professional and clear

3. Talk to the residents. Get feedback, most residents are more than happy to talk about how the sim owner treats them and can speak volumes about their respectibility.

A few common sense questions in the right places can save you from a financial loss of your investment

Of course. I have a wonderful estate owner as my landlord for my island parcels. It's definitely not the case that all are bad ... not at all.

Unfortunately for us, we probably won't have much of a choice in this. We are on the side of the region that had the new parcels attached to it, though 2 of the 4 parcels affected already had mountains on the attachment side. That means only us and one other resident are affected by the view change.

While I do think the owner has a lot of inexperience in operating a sim (some of the texture quality is so stretched on the mountains, it looks uncomfortably bad) what I think really bothered me was absolutely no notice and the first reply of "plans changed". It also bothers me that while he added these new abutted parcels, he also has re-modified OUR land - to the point that some of our objects don't fit properly on land that we are paying for. That means more work and time for us - and we should have at least been notified of this.

Moving to another of his parcels is seeming less favorable, as that would mean a lot of work, and I don't want to find out 2 weeks from now that he decided to connect something to THAT parcel as well.

What would be the right thing to do, in my opinion, is offset a few tier payments for our troubles and aggravation. It won't change the fact that our parcel is not the same as what we originally bought, but it might alleviate some of the stress and disappoinment in paying for something we probably would not have bought had we known this 1.5 weeks ago.

Of course, I can't see that happening. If concern for us was a priority, we would not have come home to a surprise like this.

Another lesson learned - and luckily not as expensive as in rl.

I appreciate all the replies. It helped a lot - even if it was with sympathy that we don't have many options.

Dmitriy

at least your sim owner decided to not ignore after a change in plans... it's tempting to check to see how the sim is doing, the guy wasn't a very good landlord to start with.

My understanding is that if you buy a parcel in a privately owned estate, such as an island for example, you are technically just renting the parcel but with some of the rights of an owner (e.g the right to pass the land on to someone else, the right to alter the settings for the land etc etc). Afterall, the tier fee is still paid by the estate owner, so as far as LL are concerned they own it.