Buying the land from under someone.

There's a piece of land I've had my eye on for a few days. I finally decide I'm going to buy it, but the owner is on the land, so I IM them, just to check that they're still wishing to sell the land. Only I hadn't noticed the busy tag, and they don't answer my IM.

Now I have to log off again fairly soon, and I want to buy this parcel before someone else does, so how rude would it be to buy the land from under them, so to speak? (They have a dance club on the land at the moment). Especially as I have already commenced social niceties with them?

(Sod's law says how ever long I hang around, they'll come out of busy mode two minutes after I log off)

If it's for sale, it's for sale.

Whenever something is for sale to "ANYONE", it is free game.

Very easy: If the land is set to buy and if you want to buy it, then go ahead. It is immaterial whether the current owner is around or not.

Just spoke to Ama. Land has been purchased by her

I'm well aware I have to right to buy it. And in fact I have bought the land, my question was more about the etiquette. There is a difference between deciding whether you have the right to do something and deciding whether it is polite to do that thing. Does that make sense?

As a landowner trying to sell I would have rather you waited. You could have passed me a Notecard offering to buy. When I was back I would IM you. I'm keen to sell the land so the thought of losing a buyer would have made me very unhappy.

It is possible I would have been changing the price or cancelling the sale. If I was cancelling the sale I might tell you and ask to buy it back but that's all. If I was cancelling sale to increase price that's my loss, it's a game so I wouldn't be upset about it myself. If I was dropping price your loss not mine


Andrew

Ama, in business as they say, time is money. I think most of us want to be polite and sociable, but sometimes you have to sell land to cover tier and hope to make a few bucks. LL doesn't care about anything but tier once a month and if you don't have it, they take back your land. Harsh but true. I try to talk when I can but I can only wait so long before I have to put a parcel on the market.

Another approach that you could have done was to send the owner a notecard telling him you wish to buy it but felt it was rude to buy it while he was standing on it and busy.

And since you didn't know how long he would be busy and that you had to log off, you were wondering if he could set it to sale to "you" at the "specified price" and then you could buy it when you got back into SL.

if he was in the act of changing prices, he could always set the new prce and IM you letting you know the new deal and if you were still interested.

Now that would have been the smart, polite thing to do.

Will remember for the next time this particular dilemma comes up. (Which will probably be never. )

If the owner was in "busy" mode rather than simply "away", wouldn't a notecard be automatically declined?

What Ike said.

I'm not aware of any SL etiquiette requiring anything other than click-and-buy when land is up for sale. Waiting for some hypothetical "right time" just means a high risk of someone else quickly swooping in and buying without hesitation.

Buying land out from under the owner is not rude, unless you immediately put up ban lines and eject them. And after buying the land, you can leave them a cheery IM of thanks.

I just looked but there is no mention of items being refused in the Knowledgebase. I think they would simply go to their inventory whether in fact online or off.

True..chat and IM's are ignored, any inventory transactions will continue.

Mandy C

Inventory transfers are declined automatically if you're busy. That's why the web stores underline that you *must* be non busy/away to receive goods.

OK, just tried this with an alt and it seems something is not working right.


Yet a notecard dropped on the AV will still pop up on screen with accept/decline buttons, and the giver will see "xxxxxx accepted your inventory offer". Same if you drop it on the box in their profile.

Thankyou again Ace

Edit: Oops, didn't turn the page .. the plot thickens!

ehh, at least he was standing on the ground Ama.

Last parcel I bought, didn't see any owner around... until I bought it, returned all objects, erm including her skybox which she was standing in at the moment, and out of the corner of my eye, I see this body plummeting to the ground....
Pretty embarrassing, that.

My sister once bought a plot and didn't relise the owners house was half on the plot she bought and half on the neighboring plot which was not for sale.She had to log off fairly soon so she set the auto return and a few other land settings and logged. When she returned she found the neighbors house in pieces. Any piece of the house that had its root prim on her land had poof been autoreturned. so half the house was missing, but all of the roof was still there.

All our brother (who is a demolitions expert RL) could say was "Dang sis can ya teach me to do that? I could get rich!"