The great land grab

no i haven't forgotten. those were ppl selling land at zero lindens to anyone when they should have been selling it to the person standing next to them. or mis-typing prices. or any number of other things ... rather than paying close attention to what they were doing .... and double checking each and every step in the process. this has been done to death.

but that is not what this thread is about. so why don't we get back on track, thank you.

I agree with you for this particular case Ciaran; it's clear from the wording used by the new estate owner that he/she was fully aware the sim was full of tenants that believed they owned land within the sim, and in this case I believe the estate buyer is responsible for compensation to those residents.

Generally I think it's the responsibility of the seller of an estate to make the buyer aware of any agreements/contracts, liabilities, etc associated with the sim to be sold.

If the seller does this, then it's the buyers responsibility to compensate any residents he/she evicts.

If the seller fails to notify the buyer, then the responsibility for compensation lies with the seller.

I once set land for sale at 30K (optimistically) on each of three lots. Someone else verified that this was the case.

Something screwed up somewhere along the way because it set to 3K and someone bought it - pretty much cussing me out in the process. Then realised that they had actually bought something they couldn't afford the tier for and wanted to sell it back to me.

I'm normally reasonable but I was doubly not inclined - she ended up abandoning it much to the joy of the island owner I'm sure (his policy being no refund and I resell it and have two lots of tier as well as two lots of payment).

I'm so glad that I bought the estate land I have now, to be honest.

forget it...

you seem to be so focused to blame the new owner without knowing any details of the transfer that i doubt that if the new owner posts the details, you`d say their lying

if they payed $1200 for the island and the old owner said to handle the residents and just ran with the money, i guess that`s the fault of the new owner aswell?

how can you convict a person when you know nothing of the details?
all blame so far lies with the previous owner for not refunding people from the island sale money unless some 1 steps forward who knows the deal that it was the responsability of the new owner, wich non have done

if i`d buy a sim for $1200 and the previous owner would say they would handle the residents so i get what i payed for, a blank sim, and they don`t do that, is that my fault?

if you buy a product that was advertised falsely after you have purchased it, is that your fault or the sellers fault?

i agree ... except that the buyer should not have a responsibility to re-pay the owners unless that money was deducted from the cost of the sim purchase.

and as alicia points, we are not privy to any of those agreements between the sim's seller and buyer.

I would consider the 'purchase fee' the tenants paid as a liability on the sim. The seller should either

a) refund the tenants before transfer or
b) make the buyer aware that the liabilities exist, and so the buyer would be responsible for these liabilities should they decide to buy the estate. It is then up to the buyer if they wish to purchase the sim with this knowledge, and the amount they pay for the estate would be based on the existence of those liabilities.

edit to add: importantly, I think if the buyer of the estate is aware of the liabilities ie that residents have paid for land within the sim, then the buyer is responsible for those liabilities.

Its interesting reading the various opinions on this. I wonder... what would happen in RL if this happened?

As for small claims... why not set up a court system in SL where people can bring others to settle disputes... people can become SL lawyers, sims can be called to jury duty, and people who scam others can be brought to justice. There could be a SL jail, SL executions.... ok, forget all that...

Sorry to hear you lost money. I'm very new to SL and am going to be cautious about buying land. My plan is to rent for a while until I figure all this out. I'll probably get bored by then and go on to something else in RL... or things will get even more interesting and then I'll take my chances with owning.

In any case, if I were on the SL jury I'd have required the land buyer and seller to compensate anyone who "bought", and also awarded them a million L for pain and suffering

I'm blaming buyers because buyers are given a get out of jail free card. Buyers should value an island carefully, it's no small sum but they all too often appear to turn a blind eye to this scam because they themselves are saving a couple of hundred bucks. Buyers need to buy responsibly.



Indeed it is, because the new owner at that stage should be saying that they will deduct the amount owed to the residents and taking care of that themselves. So if residents are owed $500, the buyer pays $700 for the island and then pays the $500 to the residents. The buyer is still paying what they thought was a fair price for the island, but the residents aren't being ripped off. The buyer can they do what the hell they like with the island.



If I unwittingly buy stolen goods, or I unwittingly come into possession of forged money, I can't keep it.

BRAVO!

I disagree here Ciaran. Although in most cases it's obvious, there is no 100% way to know what agreements the seller has made with other residents. The onus is on the seller to make this information available to the buyer, and if they have, *then* the liabilities are the responsibility of the estate buyer. All just opinion at the end of the day though.

not talking about stolen good but defunct or falsly advertised good (half working things then what promised)
residents on a sim instead of being whiped and handled

but that is exactly the point
no one has a clue of the transfer details and all blame is shifted to the new owner instead of the previous owner

this is as bad is it comes for the residents as it can get, but for for all info given, the previous owner failed to notify all their residents and without clear transfer details, you can`t point fingers at anyone besides feeling sorry for the residents who lived there


TY!

Yes, placing an extra layer before confirmation has certainly helped reduce it....but human error will always exists as will foolishness (players transferring ownership to friend or group)........and maybe the language problems for some Foreign buyers too. I'm sure it still happens....but on a much reduced scale nowadays. My incident occured in Aug 07

No not at all, the seller is in most cases the chief culprit, but buyers have a responsibility too and it seems all too easy to excuse them when anyone with an iota of experience here knows this goes on. Buyers need to find out how the land lies. The new owner damn well should get some stick, maybe it will make them think twice before entering into such an agreement in the future.

If buyers would buy responsibly then this would be less likely to happen. LL also need to get off their backsides and start intervening.

what agreement???

no one knows the agreement besides the buyer and seller so who are we to ruine the reputation of perhaps a honest estate owner just because we lack the info here on the forums???

only known so far is that the previous owner did not notify their residents, that`s all

who has the financial responsability to the residents is unknow

The agreement whereby they buy an island with existing residents and then evict them right at the start. I'm talking generally here more than this specific case. Buyers need to buy responsibly, buyers need to value land and include in that valuation exisitng commitments.

I do know however that the estate owner and the person to whom tier is due according to the covenant is a member of the group whom previously "owned" the island and that the person who sent the notecard is not listed as the estate owner.

unless you have some inside info wich you aren`t posting, this agreement hasn`t been shared here so you are speculating

What I think he's saying is that the sim buyer should find out if there are tenants before buying. Caveat emptor, etc.

If I am conned and sold a timeshare believing that it was full ownership, I can't just move in and deny access to all the other timeshare participants on the grounds that I paid for full ownership.

My speculation is based upon the very first post in this thread, but as I said I'm talking generally. There are regular threads of this nature.

Yep yep, indeed. You get this HUGE message when making a freaking Group.. "Do you really really REALLY want to spend 100Ls to create this group" but nothing on purchasing land....

btw I've been reading posts about buying some land for the last few days and still unclear the best route to buy.

I still think the onus is on the seller to make all commitments clear to the buyer; unlike rl, there is no way that a buyer can fully check which agreements are in place, the nature of them, etc. But I do believe that if the seller has been up front with any agreements that exist on the sim, the buyer is buying an island + commitments, and the responsibility for those liabilities then lies with the buyer.

if that was the agreement

but we don`t know what the agreement was with the residents

i agree with most what has been said, but without knowing who is responsible, blaming the 1 or the other on speculation is falsly ruine the reputation of perhaps a honest estate owner if the liabilities laid with the previous owner refunding people befor the actual transfer, but we don`t know

i`d gladly flame the wrong party, buyer or seller, but not without some additional info,
i`m sorry for the residents, that`s for sure

I changed my business to renting only full sims 2 months ago because I was so tired of explaining to everyone who stopped by my island that they were actually getting a better deal by not paying upfront.

Personally I got tired of typing the same thing over and over again, and then being told (sometimes in a snotty manner) that it was unfair for me to have my land listed in the estate for sale land list if I was only renting. Which is a function of LL, not a function of the Estate owner "selling" (renting) land.

People really need to educate themselves and threads like this only prove it.

I guess the "buyers" of these Private Estate lots need to be better educated, and know what they are getting in to.

The owner (in LL's eyes the owner) can up and leave, leaving them with nothing, or at a whim change the conditions of ownership (today you can resell, but tomorrow you can't). That is a risk. You should know that going in and evaluate it and decide whether you are willing to take that risk on. That is the crazy world of SL.

Reality is that, while you might be (in theory) capable of suing them, given the nature of SL, I doubt many courts would take it on. The costs alone would far outweigh the sums involved, I would think. This becomes especially problematic when the owner is in a different country from you.

Fact is that SL is a frontier world, like the old Wild West - scams abound, and people get stung. Snake Oil Salesmen are everywhere, trying to do people out of their money.

Getting rid of that frontier mentality would require a more active governing force. And that would raise its own spectre of control. Some people already feel that LL are too heavy-handed in-world.

If prospective buyers were better educated, maybe they can make better informed decisions about their actions, rather than someone expecting the people "on high" to bail them out when they get stung.

You don't know that the new owner bought the sim at a discount. I have bought used sims for more than $1675 because they had features that made them worth more, financially, than the price of a blank fresh piece of land from the land store.