Court system? eeeek!!!!

Ditto if he is slandering you about your personal life.

Depends on what you mean by "all but." Nice mainland parcels come on the market all the time. The "old mainland" central continent has some particularly attractive areas. Fly along the boundary between land and water from time to time and some day you'll find a nice ocean side plot. It will be pricey, but it will hold its value so if you buy carefully you'll come close to breaking even when you liquidate. You might even make something.

No, you have whatever rights were agreed upon in your contract - which would include an implied "you may stay here as long as you pay your fees and don't break the rules" provision, along with "estate owner won't act in an arbitrary and capricious manner."

You just have near zero ability to enforce those rights.

You can't own land on an island unless you own the entire sim. I suggest you buy a nice mainland plot and put your build there.

Ditto. The mainland is very nice if a person looks around.

rights that are not enforced are not rights.

they are suggestions

Zan and i both live on the same sim...and i agree, the best way is to ask others already living there what service they get from the sim owner. I simply wouldnt rent land from anyone else than my current sim owner-have just recently had to sell a plot i owned for over a year because the owners broke their own covenant and refused to refund me back the tier id paid when i found it impossible to operate my rental homes in such a place (this is NOT where i operate from now btw)
I dont agree with only renting from a private estate if the land is cheap to obtain. this often ive found..means people come and go really quickly, theyve invested nothing to start up, and just paid a tier fee (in some cases they dont even pay the tier and stay there annoying everyone until discovered) By setting a reasonable *purchase* start up cost, the sim owner i feel is ensuring a certain level of resident. If you paid a bit to get there, chances are youre not gonna ruin the area and genrally run riot.
Ive invested a lot in my surroundings...and its essential for me to feel secure. Ive gradually obtianed more and more land on one sim, branching out to another one owned by the same person(yes he has 6) for our store.

Other residents on a sim will be only too pleased to talk if asked (well they would on ours anyway , we're a sociable bunch lol)

This particular Sim owner broke his own covenant as well on another matter that I didn't even question. The guy is just insane Zan and has shown dictatorship tendencies recently, I feel sorry for the people still living on his estate.

I have read all of the above, and I agree with most of you, and thank you for your input.
However, this particular "Sim owner" is not a "respectable" business man as he calls himself. I bought land there over a year go, actually in 1996, and paid my tier every month without fail. Just because you have a disagreement with someone that gives you the right to take their land back? As sim owners you have the right to do whatever you want, ban, mute or whatever you want. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is the fact that people paid money (RL money), and it was stolen from them. He should of done the right thing and refunded their money including the initial cost of their land that they paid for. He has done this to two people that I know, and one being my RL cousin. I was the first one to sell because of a disagreement between him and I. I felt it best to move on rather than stay and be unhappy. I sold my land to a friend, and the tier was paid by her when it was due. He not only raised the tier on her the day after she bought it, but told her to take down her house or he would. Sorry for ranting, but the bottom line is there should be something that can be done to get your money back. What right does he have to keep money that doesn't rightfully belong to him? People have paid money for services that they are not getting! As residents we should have some kind of rights, and stealing is stealing where I come from. In any case all of my friends including myself are now gone from this sim, and I'm happy to be out!

So that we can try and get some advice or answers!

Well the problem with that is that any legal system instituted in SL would really fundamentally alter the character of the place. SL is designed to be a place with very few rules. There are the "big six", but beyond that, it's designed to be a very laissez-faire place. If you institute courts, automatically it becomes less free, and the cost of doing business for a landlord rises to pretty difficult to manage levels. The island land owner has to maintain full control over the island because ultimately it is the island land owner who is repsonsible to pay island fees to LL. The island owner has to have the flexibility to do as she wishes with the island. A better solution than a court would be for LL to recognize the tenure of the parcel holders and bill them a proportionate island fee directly, while leaving the estate controls in the hands of the island owner. That would protect the island owners from some financial losses from deadbeat tenant/owners, while giving the tenant/owners more secure tenure. The issue with this structure is that it really takes away a lot of the residual equity from the island owners who paid for the island to begin with -- LL would have re-evaluate island pricing (downward I think) if it were to be structured this way, and to be honest it would make islands much more like mainland, so I doubt LL would do something like that.

I think that everyone should investigate before buying and realize that when you own you are in reality just a tenant. If the island owner wants to take it back or sell the island or leave SL, you are out of luck. The same thing goes on mainland, although there your risk is that SL goes under in total -- so it's a more systemic risk, rather than the particularized one you take when you opt for island ownership.

In which case your private island plot goes *poof* too so it's a universal risk that isn't even specific to land, let alone mainland. If LL goes belly-up I have nothing to show for all the money I spent on SL, whether it's land or clothes or even the L$ I have left in my balance.

As far as landownership goes, there is no risk on the mainland that doesn't exist for private island land.

And there is an easy solution: if a sim owner exercices his/her right to use "Reclaim Land" whatever was paid for the land is immediately refunded (any dispute would be subject to the TOS and CS only and decided by the governance team as usual), or simply remove the ability to sell land on private sims. It didn't exist two years ago and it's essentially a LL-sanctioned scam.

I'm fully on board with the idea that estate owners shouldn't be abusive, or criminals.

But there is a problem with automatic refunds.

For instance, let's say 50% of estate residents - good or bad - generally move on within one year. And that 'good' residents don't get an instant refund, but 'problem' residents do. What do you think would happen?

So offer refunds to everyone, you say? Well, that would be great, except... islands don't make that much, and tier is 295/mo in most cases. Offering refunds on a whim means that you will go under if a good chunk of your residents (say, a group of friends) decides to leave one day.

Take the low rate of $L 5/m.... 32768 square meters x $L 5/m = $L 163480, or 618.26. That's over two months tier, which from discussions with land baron friends... that's more than most land barons keep in reserve. The people who won't get refunds are the 50-60% that remain - either that, or they could lose their land because their tier reserve just took a walk with the first group.

Financial suicide when you run the numbers. Be *very* wary of estates that offer refunds; it's financial suicide for a thin margin business model like land barony.

The only business model I'm aware of that can get away with offering refunds without excessive risk is maybe Ravenglass, just because it is so large (hence stability), has a ridiculously broad customer base across 60+ regions, and is on the mainland - a very popular choice for new residents.

Okay, that above analysis was a bit subtle and I don't expect everyone to quite get it - but the #1 thing that is important about a private estate is that it will be able to cover its own tier next month.

* * * * *

So now onto the matter of what's the right thing to do.

First off, "no refund" should be clearly stated so people are intensely aware of this.

Second, estate managers really should think twice before tossing people. I've been in the land biz for two years, with a few hundred residents taking part. Counting the people that moved in and out of their own accord over the years, short timers as well as long timers, I've dealt with something like 1000+ people on the grid.

None have been tossed out. None. That's some indication of how frequently residents need to be removed - close to never.

I'd say... a few people might have deserved it. But from what I could see, they were being problematic or lashing out for some reason that had nothing to do with the estate or me or the other residents... I suspected 'real life' issues in each case. I kept my cool; they all moved on rather quickly.

Whatever occupancy I might have lost due to their antics, was negated by the fact that I simply don't toss people out on a whim. People notice that kind of thing.

I understand what your saying Desmond, and I agree with you to a point. I know residents skip out, abandon land etc. If they chose to do that it's their loss as far as money goes. I'm talking about people that have paid $25.00 USD for their tier, and $75.00 USD for their land, and then to have a sim owner take that away from you for no good reason, other than the fact that you had a disagreement with them. So what if you disagree, we all don't think alike or have the same views or opinions about everything. That's what makes us all different. If a creator makes and sells stuff, then some jerk comes along, copies your idea and sells it, then he is punished, banned or his account may be deleted. What is a dress or Skin...$1.00 or 5.00? I'm talking about $100 dollars or more. It's just not right, bottom line. I guess it's better to rent land than buy from a sim owner. You have no more rights as a land owner than you do if you rent. So why waiste your money buying?

If "Reclaim Land" refunded the purchase price then everyone gets a refund since at one point or another the sim owner will need to reclaim the land if they want to use it again, unless the resident abandons it or sells it on to someone else (ignore the complication of how a refund works in the new owner's case for simplicity's sake, it's solvable ).

An "automatic refund" solution lets the sim owner keep absolute control of their sim (they can reclaim if they want to) but also protects the tenant from being scammed out of their purchase price. They could still loose out on rent of course, but there's really no way to avoid that.

The objection you bring up about it being financially unviable for the sim owner is part of the problem though. It's unviable if the sim owner sees the money people pay for their plot as something they can simply pocket without owing the tenant a single thing.

If a sim owner buys a sim for $1675, divides it up and manages to sell the plots for say $1700 and make tier plus some profit then they don't break even: they're still ahead by $1700 since the sim itself is still a resellable asset as well (I know you loose some money on the sale).

That $1700 is yours for as long as you keep up your end of the bargain: if you decide to evict someone you break the agreement and they get their money back. If you want to keep the money, you honour the agreement. If the sim owner decides to frivously spend the deposits then that's the sim owner's problem. If after their little shopping spree there's no money left to pay people back, the sim can be sold to reimburse everyone at least partially.

Unless a sim owner spends their tenants' deposits on personal whims (which does include buying more sims), there's really nothing unfair about it for either party, although I do agree that the current way of "buy a sim, sell the land, buy a new" wouldn't work, but then it's part of the problem too so that's not a bad thing.

(Edited to add that all the "you" are the general form . I left some in cause exchanging "you" for "sim owner" in all cases made some sentences a bit forced/unclear. I'm definitely not implying that you do/think this or that )
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Or to put things another way: if Anshe (only use her cause using you as an example seems too personal in a bad way ) decided to close shop tomorrow, what would most fair?

She sells all her sims (ignoring devaluation) and walks away with $1 million while thousands of residents are evicted.

Or she sells all her sims and everyone that bought land from her gets reimbursed. Everyone (including her) ends up with ther "investment" back and breaks even.

Not really, if they wanted to leave then they have to sell it to get their investment back so the Sim owner is OK. If a sim owner wanted someone out then they should give them notice to collect their things and refund what is owed on the day of eviction.

I agree that "buying" a parcel on an estate is not true ownership. But be aware that after a few months, renting a parcel can cost more than buying, and that's not counting the L$ you can get back after you sell a purchased parcel.

Also, if you look for rentals only, you will limit your possibilities. Finding a commercial parcel in an attractive region where covenants are enforced is not easy, but you'll find more for sale than for rent.

The key, whether you rent or buy, is to only deal with estate owners who you trust. That, unfortunately, makes things difficult for estate owners who are new and have yet not established a good reputation.

But doesn't that really turn the whole island ownership idea on its head?

As you describe it, an island owner would be more like a bank into which island tenants "deposit" their purchase price, and can withdraw such purchase price at any time -- and its the owner's obligation to retain these funds in a manner akin to which a RL bank is expected to in order to maintain deposit solvency. That seems like a very odd model where it is the island owner who is fronting a large amount of risk capital, designing and managing the sim(s) in question and so forth. I think that a sim owner has the entitlement to profit on the fact that they are the main capital risk taker involved (to a much greater tune than the $100 a parcel renter may have invested), as well as the ones who are ultimately on the hook for the tier to LL. I don't think it's reasonable to view an island owner as the quasi-fiduciary holder of a parcel renter's "deposit" to purchase the land.

What I think would help matters would be different terminology. The purchase price for such parcels is really not a purchase price, but an option price -- it is the price that will purchase your option to rent the land for the tier payment associated with the land. That option can be canceled by the sim owner at any time, per the current set up, so describing it as a purchase price is misleading, I think. I know it was based on the mainland setup, but as we all know mainland doesn't have that level of risk for the parcel owner as islands do.

This is just it, the covenant doesn't say the sim owner can and has the right to suddenly decide to get all nazi on you and take your investment back by force. It only says what a nice deal it is a few rules (that the sim owner himself broke) and that you are buying into "Land Ownership". Hardly land ownership if he can just take it back because you didn't pat him on the back for letting a girl go about freely for over a month and callously eject her at her birthday party.

Not really, it would only change the way rentals that charge an upfront fee work which is really the only problem area. True rentals wouldn't be affected (there's nothing to refund).

If you buy a sim only to sell the land you're not risking anything, you have your money back. It's the tenants who are risking their money, the sim owner always comes out ahead since they already broke even and have a sim they can sell second hand on top of it.

The covenant doesn't say the sim owner can and has the right to suddenly decide to get all nazi on you and take your investment back by force. It only says what a nice deal it is a few rules (that the sim owner himself broke) and that you are buying into "Land Ownership". Hardly land ownership if he can just take it back because you didn't pat him on the back for letting a girl go about freely for over a month and then callously eject her at her birthday party.

I agree with you Kitty!
When the tier has been collected from the "banned resident", and the land is sold again, not only does the Sim owner get paid for the land again, he (Sim owner) gets the tier paid twice.

you are right the covenant doesn't.

sadly the TOS does.

And here lies the problem, it should be mandatory for covenants to explain the TOS and make sure a resident has read and understood that. Also the terms used should be changed, land ownership is misleading. I lived there for over a year and at the time was pretty fresh to SL and like many it would have been nice if these things were better explained to us.

Yeah, tossing a guy out who just put in 75 nonrefundable and 25 tier is just nuts. But then I don't seem to have these problems with massive numbers of residents needing to be turned out.

Basically to charge an upfront fee you have to have a place that has *so* much added value that people are willing to pay 75 USD nonrefundable to get in. And if they can move on by selling rights later, that's up to them - usually they do. But it has to be made plain that there aren't any promises.

"Selling a region to get an investment back" is also a huge fallacy. There's no way to recover your cost on a region - can't be done. People will buy a new region straight from the Company first. By the time the deal is sweetened, time is spent finding a buyer, having the transfer processed... and don't forget about the 'hanging on with that last few tenants' - forget it. Not a fiscal reality. The real killer: I spend 20-30 hours per week on my regions, as many land barons do. If I was a complete patsy I'd say my time was worth nothing. But even an intelligent consumer knows that the land baron's time has to be worth *something* or their land is probably history anyway.

As for Anshe - she can't just cash out and leave. Imagine putting 500+ regions for sale instantaneously. Heh. They might be each worth one dollar in that glut, not one million. Her exit is to stay profitable, gradually sell off *perhaps* ... or collapse.

All of these expenses are dwarfed by two things: tier, and the cost of the estate owner's time.

It's a complex problem. Nobody should be stiffed, as we have seen in the case of some crappy landlords. But neither should a guy pour in 20 hours a week for months on end, then have his time valued at zero so someone can 'cash out' on a whim. That's robbery the other way. We aren't banks, and no estate will last forever if the owner must work for free indefinitely. I can't think of a more unstable situation, risky for both resident and estate owner, than that.