Curious about Land under Maintenance

A 7168m parcel next to door to me in Ohno is now in the posession of Governor Linden and under Maintenance. I'm pretty sure the last owner is someone who is still around in SL, although it might have changed hands without me noticing. I'm just curious, what are the reasons that a large chunk of regular old land would end up in maintenance? It's very mysterious to me.

Maybe it was released?

Is that what happens when you choose Abandon in the land interface? It goes to the guvna and then it gets auctioned eventually? I guess that would be the simplest explanation. Although still kind of mysterious to me. I dumped most of my land in Ohno recently by pricing it at noticeably less than the going rate, and it got snapped up quickly by a reseller. It seems people are always looking for a bargain.

Yes Maintenance (M) seems to be the setting between Governor-owned (GO) and either auction-prepped (AP) or first land (FL). The 512sm lot I needed to square my Boardman area went through 3 months of being GO~M~AP~FL~M~FL~M~AP and finally auctioned.

After all my watching, waiting, IMing, more waiting and watching, and prepping an alt account in case it did FL, it sold on the auction block for around $400US111 Needless to say, my lot is still doglegged.

Is protected land always....protected?

No, new sims are usually tagged protected before they are parceled. That's been a major point of confusion in the new continents where people have bought land next door to "protected" (seemingly void), but actually just not parcelled for auction sims.

Those should described differently. My proposition is "Undeveloped" to indicate that, though it's owned by the Governor now, it will be parcelled for sale later.