The financial dangers of island living - LL complicit but shirking all responsibility

That's more of a mistake though. If someone's providing the land free, resale should be disabled .

Actually, calling the two different classes "Covenant" and "Mainland" are pretty good. The word "covenant" INSTANTLY tells the lessee that s/he will have to at least sign something. I honestly think that all island land should be listed as "rental" and include mainland rentals in with that. Don't even put it in the "Land Sales" tab. It's too confusing for people.

I have also seen covenants change radically with no warning.

When that happens, you have no recourse. If you bought the land, you can end up s--t creek w/out a paddle.

I know it's not aimed at me, but I have a version history at the bottom of my covenants - I do sometimes update them to make things clearer, but not to change the intent of any of the rules. I can also provide earlier versions on request, as I keep them all.



That's certainly what I do. If somebody needs to transfer it to a partner or deed it to a group, I enable transfer/resale briefly while they do it, then disable it again.

Well I guess realistically Covenant and Mainland are the same thing.

With Mainland you are buying land that is owned by the Estate Owner Linden Lab. Its guaranteed by the Linden Lab TOS and you make your monthly fee payments to LL. If LL folds you lose your land. If they raise their prices you pay those higher prices. If they change or even violate the TOS you have to accept it. (barring legal action)

With Covenant land you are buying land that is owned by the Estate Owner (Insert name) Its guaranteed by the (Insert name) Covenant and you make your monthly fee payments to (Insert name). If (Insert name) folds you lose your land. If LL folds, then (Insert name) also folds If they raise their prices you pay those higher prices. If the change or even violate that Covenant you have to accept it. (barring legal action)

Thing is there are people who don't realize their deal isnt with Linden Lab anymore on covenant land. So somehow they should be better informed.

sadly, some peoples' sole purpose for renting estate land is to rip other people off. requires researching the landlords reputation.

I think the idea of having mainland and covenant tabs in the land sales window is an excellent idea. Ideally they should also change this window from "Buy Land" to "lease land" since you do not OWN the land regardless of who you buy it from, but I doubt that will happen.

Regarding the language problem and covenants: could you put a kiosk on the parcel for rent that offers a language dialog, then displays the covenant in the selected language? People always click on kiosks since they think they'll get a free t-shirt.

SJ

Oh, look... someone IS actually saying that. /me nods to Cristalle.

I could always provide translated covenants (if I got the whole thing translated...), my issue is more that if people are prepared to agree to a theoretically-binding agreement written in a language they don't read, they'd probably still not bother reading it even if it were in a language they do read.

2 tabs would work

mainland tab - "buy land"
island tab - "Lease land from another resident"


I think it is okay to call the mainland tab "buy" since that emphasises the main difference - another resident cannot take it from you.
Obviously tier payments must be clear but as far as I remember they already are when you purchase land

You can also rent on the mainland, just to confuse your model a little.

The only way (most) people would get the difference is if you keep it simple and go with "Mainland" and "Rentals".

Calling it "covenant", "island", "estate", "private sim", etc doesn't really clear things up for people who don't already know what those terms mean.

Yep, on the whole I think it would be better to do away with "buy land" entirely, since the real difference is covenant v. non-covenant.

And really, when you buy / rent from LL, the ToS and the Community standards act as the covenant.

I wish this is what LL had done at first, because I agree, Sardonicus, this is the most accurate description of the transaction.

I also agree that it won't happen, because residents find the idea of owning a chunk of SL charming. And LL knows that - it's part of the appeal of the world. So "buying land" isn't going away.

This issue would be greatly defused if LL would simply notify sub-owners on an estate when the owner is in default, and give them a 'grace period' to remove possessions themselves. Then autoreturn everything, and close down the sim.

That does not address the issue of any original purchase price the sub-owner may have paid. For me, that is not a big deal - because I read and understood the terms. I only have a 4k, so now that i've had the land for months, I regard that as a fully depreciated investment. Essentially, it was my payment for a genuinely premium experience. If I get to recover it when I leave, that's gravy *shrugs*.

to get back to the OP's situation, Linden Labs has usually in the past brought the region back up for awhile, to allow the displaced renters (see that word, renter) to retrieve their possessions. I would suggest the OP press this issue, and any other renters who were living there.

It's pure misrepresentation to use the word "buy" or "own" when one "buys" a parcel on an island.

It is also misrepresentation to use the words "buy"
or "own" mainland, since LL could go belly up, faster then Ginko financial.

The solution would be rework SL so that whenever a parcel is purchased ---either on an island or island sim(s), or mainland, we receive dvds that run independently on our own computer, so that when SL goes belly up, we still have our "land" and property, that can run on our own computer, independently and independent from the grid.

Just because this is a so called "imaginary world," does not mean that we should be expected to "imagine" we actually are buying anything. They can "imagine" they got paid too.

At these prices for Sims and land these DVDs should be Gold plated.

There is so much wrong and essentially exploitive, unethical and eventually illegal, about SL "land purchases" that is it going to inevitably explode in eveyone's face, when finally, reality and common sense sets in and LL is finally, legally held accountable.

Making excuses for any of this, along with some of the other "land' issues brought up in various forum threads today, is really only perpetuating the blatant misrepresentations.

While I agree that LL isn't the surest bet on the planet, I don't see the point of planning all of our in-world activities around its downfall. I think the greenest newb understands that all of this would go away if LL shut down. But within the boundaries of the virtual universe, there are very real differences between "owning" mainland and "owning" estate land that can't be ignored, and should not be so ambiguous in the land sales tab.

If owning virtual land and trading virtual goods and commodities is silly to you because it's just virtual, then maybe SL just isn't for you.

I have no problem with the concept, in fact I like the concept. But I have a problem with misrepresentation and the obvious pitfalls that have been built into SL as it is and how all of us have helped perpetuate it through a dreamy haze, from which, there will be an inevitably rude awakening.

The thing I think adds to a lot of the trouble people get into with land rental is that quite often they see rental as a way of avoiding paying premium and THAT bars them from the forums where all the useful advice and pit falls are highlighted. With out the forum i know I would have made a lot of mistakes in sl.

You don't have to be premium to post and view threads here. You just need payment info on file.

But I do think that most of the people who could benefit from our very wise advise never think to come here. Poor saps, missing out on so much. Thus they often end up getting scrod.

Not really, to all intents and purposes people have plots on islands that operate in the same way as mainland does. They can terraform, they can resell, it's very different from a rental where you can't terraform and can't resell.

All land here is leased, mainland, estate land, it's leasehold. Absolutely none of it is owned.

That is technically true. However...

The only three ways you can lose your mainland: 1) You don't pay your tier. 2) You do something illegal or against the TOS and get banned. 3) LL goes out of business and shuts SL down.

The ways you can lose your estate land: Insert the infinite number of reasons an estate owner can decide to eject you here. And you can add the three reasons stated above should any of those happen to the estate owner.

PLUS one more: Estate owner sells to someone else who decides they don't need you on their land.

4. You don't pay your premium membership fee, something that won't lose you estate land

Of course estate land is a far riskier game, but how many private islands are there out there? If the picture was as bad as some people state then there wouldn't be a private estate landlord anywhere on the grid.

LL's hands off approach on these issues doesn't help a fat lot. If a private landlord thought he or she would have to answer to LL for glibly reclaiming land or evicting people then they may act a little more responsibly.

Ironically I was at Robin Linden's office hour last week where people were suggesting that LL should hand over control of mainland to a third party of some sort.