About the business of Real Estate

Well yes and no. The buyer should research what they're buying, they should ask the seller about outstanding commitments. They should ask for evidence, they should speak to the current tenants, they should explain they are planning on buying the island. It's not that hard to find out whose renting a plot.

The seller can pour smoke over the deal, but the buyer should enter into research.

Now I agree with you..

If I were buying a sim I would also check the covenant and maybe talk to some of the current owners/renters and check what they expect.

Seems like a good thing to do...

.d

The take the money & run thing was more when people would pay a lump sum for land on an island then keep paying them cheap tier but once the owner had a near full sim & a heap of money earnt from peoples "purchases" then they could just sell the island before the next lot of tier was due to an alt or someone else and evict everyone, close that account and start again. I don't know how many still sell land on islands nowdays using the lump sum model.

Even if it is a rental only model, the buyer has no way to know who has paid for months in advance, or whose tier is expiring at the time of purchase. Buyer is easily open to scamming from some disgruntled person who will scream for a few weeks of free tier.

But it's not impossible, you can ask, you can tell the seller you won't buy until you've talked to tenants, you can take what the tenants tell you back to the seller. The seller can try and pull the wool over your eyes, but if you do all you can to try and come to a fair deal, then you buy with a much clearer conscience.

Yeah, okay... There is always one side to a story that isn't always present, and that is the truth. Put yourself in the opportunistic tenant's shoes. Someone is poking around asking about how much they have paid in. That's a clue that the island may be purchased and you might exaggerate how much paid.

Seller, if also a scammer, will understate the amount, if any, or say that he will refund his tenants their tier.

The buyer is left without the one thing he needs to properly value the land: the truth.

The seller is the one with all the information. Seller is the one that made the contract. Seller should deal with his tenants.

You'd have to find a balance & draw a line at some point, I imagine. If one person says one thing and the seller says another before the sale you would have to tell the person screaming for free tier to take it up with the person he paid, at some point.

After talking to all the tenants though it's likely pretty easy to find out who is telling the truth, the seller, or 10 tenants who say the opposite of what the seller said.

If 9 tenants agree with the seller and there's only one screaming for free tier, well...you'd have to make a judgement call and in that case personally I'd say take it up with the seller.

The balance is precisely that: take it up with the SELLER. It should not be the buyer's responsibility to clean up the seller's affairs unless he was buying the seller's entire business.

Should is the keyword. We've both been here long enough to know the horror stories, we're both landlords, we both want to do the best by our tenants, we both want tenants to have faith in the rental system. Asking a few questions doesn't hurt. We can only do so much but if asking a few questions means we save a few tenants from being heinously ripped off, then surely that's worthwhile?

I agree with you on that one but also I think if a seller is selling an island and the buyer does NOT want the tenants the seller needs to clean that up for the tenants.

I have tenants on my islands and that is PRECISELY why I haven't just sold my remaining sims and cashed it out at this point, because I am looking out for my tenants, I have a responsibility to them.

I have had a situation in the past where an island was not profitable and tenants kept leaving until there were only a few left, at which point I gave them fair notice that the island would be repurposed. They weren't especially happy about having to move and not get to live on a nice big empty island while paying for a 4096 but they weren't ripped off either.

But if the buyer wants to keep the island with the tenants, he needs to talk to them, and in either case he needs to communicate with any existing tenants to make sure they know what is going to happen.

Yes, but what does that change for a buyer who is being scammed? Shit happens, and the buyer is the one at greatest risk due to the amount of capital being expended. A person who merely rents and pays tier, or purchased a small plot only paid a fraction of what the buyer is exposed to. It is not fair for the buyer to pay more than the agreed price for an island.

Thats one of the reasons LL won't get involved in the island owner/tenant disputes.

I agree that the seller should clear it up, and I would do the same thing in your position. I would otherwise find a responsible purchaser who is willing to maintain the tenants.

As a buyer though I would attempt to save myself some headaches by making sure the existing tenants knew the island was to be sold and knew whether they were to be evicted or not.

True, that is a reasonable step. That way the tenants can take it up with the seller proactively. But there needs to be some lead time between the agreement to purchase and the actual sale for this to be effective. If you make a deal with the seller and pay the same day, or the next day, someone is still probably going to be screwed when their stuff is returned to them before they get a chance to log in.

Agreed but the price should be based on outstanding commitments of the seller.

Only the seller knows what that is. A buyer cannot read his mind.

However a buyer who doesn't ask question aids and abets these scams that go on. I simply refuse to accept that a buyer can't ask questions, we're not talking about a ten dollar purchase here, we're talking about hundreds of dollars, a buyer should ask questions. To not do so is absolving responsibility.

Asking questions does not guarantee results and regardless of that fact it is not aiding and abetting, whether or not questions are asked.

Not asking questions means you're part of the problem, I'm sorry, but not researching what you're buying, or ignoring the implications of your purchase, very much aids and abets the scammers.

You're right, it doesn't guarantee results, but by not even bothering to ask, you most definitely aid and abet.

That's going too far, especially for someone who is buying solely for personal use. It's not going to stop a scamming if that is what is happening. Does it hurt? No, but it is not and should not be the buyer's obligation. My sole objection is to the characterization of this as being some kind of moral obligation for the buyer when it is completely ineffective against a duplicitous seller.

Whoa that's cold!

Though, I see problems with that.

First, it's not always easy to get a new batch of tenants, especially if you've got no rep.

I know some very reputable, decent region owners who had a less than easy experience booking an entire region lately. And that was in high season, with me referring people left and right over there too, and putting my rep behind it also.

Second problem, you've got to use RL info to buy that island, or something that ties a bank account to it, and all the alts.

At some point if you defraud people over and over, intentionally and traceably, you are prolly looking at wire fraud charges. A very serious felony in the United States, at least.

Lastly, a brand new island is only 1000 USD. So you are only looking at 1000 USD profit for every repetition of the scam. Hey, it's less work to manage five or six islands reputably and make 1000/month that way, than it is to do all the scamming!

The Lindens have been providing quite a "nice" bit of lead time between the time of ticket submission and actual transfer and payment, from what I understand. Making a deal with the seller and paying the same day or the next is dependent on how fast they resolve the ticket, and I think it's pretty reasonable to say that LL isn't known for their swift handling of support tickets.

It's also a case of buyer beware when buying a sim from a private owner, and if buyer doesn't beware, buyer may get screwed in some way (angry ex tenants griefing him or otherwise) no matter what the seller *should have* done.

Devious.