Maybe the term "for sale" has changed over the years

I see a lot of people saying "sim for sale", yet they give you a buy price and then a linden dollar amount of tier/ week. That doesn't sound like a sale, but more like a lease or renting. If I'm BUYING something, I get the impression of taking over complete ownership and paying LL the tier cost, but the former estate owner. I see this all the time.

Their concerns is all about the fact than even when you "buy", you are renting from Linden Lab (since you don't buy apparently anything...) *BUT* most of them tends to ignore one important aspect: Linden Lab is a Real Life company and must respect the Real Life law whatever they wrote on the TOS, in other words when you "buy" a sim from Linden Lab you are paying an online service (it's like renting the DSL line from your internet provider), Linden Lab cannot cease the service outside the law (they cannot reclaim a simulator back without refund you, just because u looks ugly (it's an example) without facing the RL law, it doesn't matter what they wrote on the TOS, this is a real life, it is regulated by the commercial law); on the other side an owner of a private sim can reclaim your land back *without refunding you* since you didn't opened a "real life" formal agrement with him: you just donate your money/lindens... so they would wake up in a bad mood a day and kick your a** out for no reasons, and you can't do anything about it.
This is the ONLY difference between purchasing a land in mainland or estate; or the difference between purchasing a simulator from Linden Labs or renting one from another owner.

(there are honest land managers out there.. but i trust only those ones that gives to me a real life contract (paper) with signs, and does run a real life company).

But the former estate owner what?

I think the word "not" was missed out - "but not the former estate owner".

Anything less than a full transfer deal shouldn't be being advertised as for sale. Some of this comes from Linden Lab's terminology over what "Buying" entails.

What can be done about it though without Linden Lab intervening, alrering code and going on a campaign of removing false advertising?

No, they say, for sale, but you never get ownership, just estate management rights. The difference in that is being a club owner or club manager. If you not the owner after purchase, then you are not buying. If you only get estate management rights and paying tier (which is usually higher) to someone other than Linden Lab, then you are renting, not buying.

My point exactly. Even when you do search for Sim for sale, a lot of this "leasing" pops up as for sale.

That's something Linden Lab need to fix. I set my estate parcels for sale for one week's rent. I point out in the parcel name and description that it's a rental agreement. However those parcels will appear in the "Land for sale" search. I'd be happy if they didn't appear there, but without Linden Lab's help I can't do that. Only parcels that have resell rights should be appearing in the land for sale search.

When it comes to full sims, it should only be sims with full transfer that appear there.

There are many advantages of setting estate land "For Sale", most notably it means you have a workaround for the low number of group limits.

The whole estate purchase window needs an overhaul anyway. Bottom line is it needs Linden Lab intervention to improve this process.

its not a real sale, only a "virtual sale" of some permissions.
So yes. "sale" has a different terminology within virtual estate.

Eebay prohibited auctioning of virtual items from MMOs because it is impossible to prove that they are not selling identical copies of the same virtual items, wich would be like selling some kind of text.
SL regions are not copyable within a grid as they are still physical on servers, but often you only buy acess rights or ban rights, and not the server itself.

Even virtual sale, if you are not the owner after buying, then its not a sale. Do you ever see people shopping for clothes or other items on SL and the creator can remove it from anyone's inventory at will? No, because they "bought" the item, not leased it. As long as the estate owner has his name as owner of that sim, that sim will always be his. He is basically just renting the sim to whoever.

Selling stuff is one thing, but having access to it is another

I have access to everything I've "bought".

Still, if people fall for it, it's a great concept. One buys land, sets it up for sale in parcels and thus gets one's money back, whilst even collecting the tier as well! Then all one has to do to make a decent profit, is set the whole lot up for sale and transfer all ownership rights to the new owner.

If the buyers (who are in fact only renting their land) get crunched in the process, tough luck for them.

Disclaimer: yes, this sounds cynical. But I've seen it happen on a parcel near my land: people paid up a year in advance and got kicked out after a couple of months, just because the owner decided to cash in.

I would like to see a category for with, or without covenant. Could be done by LL and be automated. This would be a sure sign of leasing from someone or buying from LL.

You only need a covenant to sell parcels, so the mainland/estate filter is still the better option.

your right, perhaps the best way would be to have LL care hehe

I think there may be ways of poking them to care, it's not a healthy situation at the moment.

even in real life when you buy land you still have to pay taxes on it and can lose it for any reason the government feels like taking it from you..you never really own land in real life either just the right to have owner privileges while you are there.it still belongs to the state in a sense and always will.

I like to think that most estate owners who advertise island "sales" only do so because they're using LL's same wording, and not because they're actually trying to fool people. There clearly are two business models with estate rentals; the "transfer-allowed" kind that involves paying a purchase price on top of rent, and the pure rental that prohibits reselling. We need distinct, standardized terminology so that customers understand what they're getting, but I don't think that the current tools estate owners are provided help us very much. I mean ALL estate land is rental land, but we end up in the same searches as mainland, and we have to use the same mechanism to make our mainland available to customers as a mainland reseller would.

Could someone please confirm something for me:

Someone renting island land agrees to abide by the covenant that the estate owner has typed into the Covenant box on their land details.

Can the estate owner then just change this once the renter has moved in?

If this is the case, what use is the covenant?

It's only useful if it isn't changed.

A covenant is useful in laying out guidelines/rules you have to abide to, but it's strictly a one way agreement (the sim owner can do as he/she pleases with impunity).

The practical problem in-world is that the one "authority" we have that could do anything (LL) refuses to acknowledge or enforce any agreement, so in-world they're useless as a two-way "contract" (and I'm not all sure sim owners in general would want to be accountable for their end of the deal either since it would mean ceding absolute control of their sim).

I don't think anyone has ever taken it to RL court, so the value of a covenant in RL is questionable at best as well.

The analogy doesn't really work though.

For all practical purposes LL is our "government" in-world but while it choose to recognize your ownership of mainland parcels, it refuses to recognize your ownership of estate land.

Since LL is the only entity that matters that makes for the difference between buying mainland and "buying" estate land: whether or not LL will deal with you as the owner of a parcel. If they won't, then you don't own it and you're paying only for the privilege of being able to rent that parcel (the ability to resell doesn't mean much, the sim owner can uncheck that little box whenever they feel like it).

why doesn't it work??it seems to fit the OP's question of renting or owning..cause LL is not the only government in SL since the time islands were introduced..
if you have the option to sell then you fall under owner in this world..if you don't have the option to sell you are renting..to be just as technical
both LL and Sim owner can uncheck that box anytime they see fit.
you only get owner privliges on mainland aswell you don't really own that plot from LL.
moving to an island you just choose a smaller government..more like a state of the government.

Ceka, the difference is simple

The Lindens are ACCOUNTABLE. You know their address etc. If they screwed you over you have (at least in theory) some chance of pressing your case against them. They have stated certain facts that you can be reasonably sure will not change. You know the tier (yes, I know this can go up, but in practice we know that the Lindens are not likely to increase it suddenly, or by a large amount, it would be bad business sense), you know the rules - the TOS, and you know that it is very unlikely that you will loose your land nless you violate the TOS.

How many times have you heard of the Linden's taking anyone's land from them for no reason?

An estate owner does not have any accountability. You do not know any of ther real life details, their covenant can be changed at any time, they can sell or throw you off any time, change the tier, change anything.

How many times have you heard of an estate owner taking a renter's land from them for no reason?

It is all about who you trust, I guess.

A recognised company who have certain legal obligations to abide by the clearly defined rules, or an anonymous individual who doesn't.