Missing Sim owner question

I live on sim where the owner has been away for almost 2 weeks now and before was their every day.I know their could be RL problems as to why he is not around.

What i want to know is what happens if the Sim owner does not comeback or does not make tier payments to linden labs?He has 3 sims on here and has not appeared and i own alot of land between these 3 sims and want to know what my options are.

As far as I know you have no options. But if it's any consolation, I didn't log into SL for three months but I paid my tier every month and my tenants were never in jeopardy.

When you choose to rent land or property from another resident you are only given whatever guarentee the landlord of that property will give you, which is only as binding or trustworthy as the resident offering the land/property. LL will not get involved with complaints of this nature because they have nothing to do with the agreement you made with that other resident.

Before giving anyone a substaintial amount of L$ for a rental, consider the resident... thier age, verification status, the recommendations of long-time renters or residents.

Otherwise, if your landlord decides its just not worth paying tier another month (3 sims would be what, almost $900 USD a month?) to try to recoup the lose of buying over $5000 USD of virtual property, you will be, as they say in the industry, S. O. L. (shit outta luck).

When you rent, its not your land, and if the land owner decides to skip off with your money, whelp, that would be on you for deciding to trust them in the first place. You could abuse report them, I suppose, which might get them banned, but if they've already left SL for greener virtual pastures, that's not going to matter a whole lot.

sounds like buying land is risky then if u have no recourse over the sim owner.

I think there is a good chance he will be back, if he has 3 sims. I wish you good luck, sir.

I am of the beleif that a responsible sim owner will never "sell" land on an island. Selling implies both perpetuity and future value. I will only ever rent land on my sim because I am not a corporation and I can't guarantee I won't get hit by a bus.

Sometimes sim owners need a break, you dont know the amount of BS residents throw at them on a daily basis, each resident thinks that the sim owner is there specifiaclly for them sometimes, Multiply that by 200 residents and you start seeing the picture of how stressful it really is. this is especially true wih sim owners that are there everyday , residents start to take for granted that the sim owner must be there and always on call.

more mature sim owners have left the chitchat to others and you cannot talk to the sim owner directly, they have already gone thru this process of growing pains where they want to talk to the residents but it becomes more than they can handle since ther is alot more bookkeeping to running a sim that the sim owner just remembering when YOU have to pay tier. They are overseeing every resident on the sims.

If you want to know how busy you have made your sim owners life, calculate the amount of time you have talked to your sim owner over the past week, and multiply that by the amount of residents the sim owner has, then multiply that by 4.3 and see how much time a sim owner spends just talking to residents and not doing thier jobs... indeeed, sim owners need vacations too!

One could argue that even purchasing land directly from LL itself is a risky venture, since Section 5 of thier own TOS states that they can't guarentee you that your data/land/money won't be deleted from thier servers at any time, for no reason at all.

I hope your landlord comes back, but if not, your avenues of recourse are very limited.

I agree completely. To me, "selling an island parcel" = wholesale share of $1675 USD purchase price + roughly 5 years of paying tier per month (the parcel's share of it) + reasonable profit. Most people would never pay that much at one crack, and even the sim owner may not be around in five years. Even if someone "buys" a piece of a private island, the original owner still "legally" owns it and has to pay LL every month the tier fees. Renting is the ONLY rational way to go on a private island. Otherwise, go plunk down $1675 USD and get your own private island.

While I think its good people can discuss why they would rent as opposed to own, each person should make a judgement for themselves as renting is seldom as cheap as ownership.

For Example. I recently read a post where the sim owner was charging L$1 per meter per week as rental. sounds pretty good right? Well do the math, thats 65000 meters making 65000L$ every week x 4.3 weeks in a month. Thats 280k per month in revenue for a rental sim in USD thats about $1100 USD per month. The SIm owner pays $295 max a month in tier fees, that leaves $805 USD pure profit

On the other hand, my sims I sell at L$ 4.50 (that would be a months rental)per meter one time fee, and then your tier is arounf $3 USD per 512 , multiply 3 x 128 plots on a sim and you get $384 USD per month in tiers collected as opposed to rental minus the 295 per month LL charges the owner and you have 89USD in pure profits, thats far less profits than $805, and the only thing the resident exchanges for this cost is 1 months worth of upfront rental fees set as land sale and ownership.

Conclusion, rentals being a better deal is a matter of how you look at it, you will pay far more for a rental even in short term

on all 600 plus of AC islands, you never pay a purchase price and TIER on the land is the same as you would pay on mainland.


never Ever EVER pay a 'purchase' price for private island land.

you just 'rent' it and if you pay more then LL charges on mainland, MOVE TODAY

You only have to read the forum to see how many people get ripped off with 'buying and 'selling' land. In a recent post a guy paid L$100,000 and got ripped off and lost the lot.

I do not sell land on my sims, as I think it is dishonest. The words 'buy' and 'sell' have no meaning on private island sims, the owner can just take back at ANY time, and LL will not intervene. Renting is honest. I have my sims parcelled into a 4x4 grid of 16 plots of 4096sqm each. I reserve four plots for resident facilities, such as a beautiful beach, or gardens, and I rent the other 12 plots. With Object Bonus I can then give each tenant 900 prims, and I charge L$1700/week for a fabulous home, fully furnished, and great facilities.

At 100% occupancy, which is rarely the case, the income I derive is 12x1700x4 / month, = L$81600 (max), which at approx 1US$ = L$250, comes to US$326 / month. That is just US$31 per month MAX over the tier of US$295 that I pay to LL each month. At that rate, the payback period for the capital cost of the sim, and the landscaping, houses and furnishings, and we are talking YEARS.

As my tenants usually pay weekly the most they ever stand to lose is 1 week's rent, ie L$1700. Compare that to the chap who lost L$100,000.

Rock

your argument against renting seems to be based purely on the amount of profit an island owner might make.
i am not concerned with this. my concern is how much i spend and how much i stand to lose.
i think of every land on sl as unownable. even mainland i would need to pay tier (rent) every month, so i wouldnt really own it.
rent is the way to go.

Actually, I did pay a purchase price for my little slice of Dreamland and am allowed to put it up for sale as long as I make it clear to the buyer that the land is indeed Dreamland and that the covenant for it has special requirements.

Everytime I pay my Property Tax to my dear ole Uncle Sam, who reminds me once in a while that emminant domain is always in the best interest of the country, I know that the land I own IRL isnt really mine, but something I pay my government for every single year, regardless of if Ive paid off the mortgage.

Just sayin'.

you have more rights in regard to real life land you own. astronomically more so.
sl owned land you do not actually own in any shape or fashion. contrasting rl & sl land is pretty silly you must admit.

Read Rock Ryder's post #12!
I'm in complete agreement with him and operate all my SIMS in a similar manner. I, too, now people who've lost hundreds of RL dollars to private sim land scams.

I charge ONLY rent. To encourage long term rentals, I ask for the first 4 weeks of rent at initial rental, and weekly payment after that.
In exchange, I use the 'sell land' commands to give the new renter ALL the features of ownership they would get on the mainland such as BAN and AUDIO and limited Teraforming. Obviously 'RESELL' is not allowed.

This works VERY WELL. My renters are protected and aren't impacted by the ups and downs of the price of land. I get happy tenants.

I hope you don't mind me jumping into this conversation.

I think you're correct in that you have many more rights as RL land owner than you do as SL land owner. SL is completely controlled by a private company that could make a very bad decision at some point that could deprive you of your land and/or not make SL worth your while anymore. Worse yet, LL could go belly up due to poor management.

However 2 items to consider:

1. You are investing a tiny amount of money relative to a RL owner so you're risk is far less(relative risk that is). For $500 U.S. or less you can be a virtual land baron(I know some have much, much more invested) Compare that to the millions you could lose in the RL land market. If I lost all my SL land today, I would be very upset for a week or so but could eventually shrug it off. Make a bad investment choice in RL land and you could be ruined.

2. Virtual property laws are evolving and anyway its in the best interest of LL to make the user experience in SL secure. So, in a few years, perhaps we'll have more legal rights than we have now. If it starts to get around that people are randomly losing huge tracts of land without recourse it will kill their business.

Just my 2 cents.

Rock, may I ask a sort of personal question then?

Do you run your rentals as a "business" for the meager profit, or simply because you enjoy it? Granted, you do also get the four unrented 4,096 sq m plots of land to play with and develop, so there's that benefit for you, too.

But, it does seem to me that your "profit margins" are very, very slim, with the excellent rental rates you have.

I own a sim. I offer land for rent OR buy. But, i do make it very clear to anyone BEFORE they part with money (I do not allow right click and buy on my land - it all goes directly through myself) that ANY land you buy either on a private island or in the mainland is never actually guaranteed as theirs forever.
Now i go to great lengths to explain to people they have a choice.
I go to great lengths to explain their rights.

Ok, so some sim owners may not be as forthcoming and may even attempt to rip off their buyers by reclaiming land for little or no reason. But Most of us arent like that.

The Only reason I allow buy or rent is that to 'buy' land off my sim means they end up paying a lower tier than they would rental.

I always make it clear that buying land from my sim is ONLY in their interest if they are planning on staying long term. (For example after 4-5 months or so the difference between tier and rental would have saved them money over renting.)

That is the only advantage. Long term tier/rental prices.
Now as long as they stay for that period of time, they have saved money in the long run.

If they only plan to stay for a month or whatever I always recommend they rent the land.

The benefit to me is that I know that my land is occupied and will stay occupied for a definate length of time and that I will not log in one day to find half my renters moved on and their is no income for the next week or so while i find new renters.

Selling land on private sims has its benefits to both parties providing the Owner of the sim is honest and sticks to his agreements.

If you are in doubt about a sim owner, then go ahead and speak to his current tenants, see if they have had a good or bad experience, see if buyers are ever kicked off the land for stupid reasons or no reasons at all.

If the worst case ever happened and I found I was forced to give up my island I wouldnt just abandon it and leave my tenants/owners without a place to go. In the first instance I would offer the whole area to the tenants cheap or sell on to another sim owner i can trust to look after it properly.

Most of the negative comments I see regarding buying island land are always related to 'IF a sim owner wants to' or 'they CAN steal you land back IF they want'.

The reality is, most sim owners arent like that. Tier is generally a lot lower than rental. Long term rental is more expensive than buying your plot and paying tier.

The answer is, be careful and check up on the sim owner before parting with your money, make sure they give an upfront explanation of fees and risks and CHECK with the other residents if your sim owner is fair and keeps his word!

Like i said, I give all residents a CHOICE. Make sure you get the same choices from whoever you obtain land from.

If in doubt. Dont buy.

LL land is no more secure than buying on an island. LL have banned/closed/barred many accounts that owned land on the mainland for whatever reasons they had at the time.
And i assure you, should your pay check go missing/arrive late/ you go on holiday and overspend whatever.. Im a lot more likely to say hey, sure you can pay me next week for your tier than LL ever will be!

If I were to buy land on a Private Island, I'd buy it from someone like Jakk Szondi.

The cases of Land sale fraud on Private Islands seem to be of two types.
1.The original SIM owner departs SL or kicks out his tenants, in which case, a 'reference' check of the SimLord would help protect the renter. Jakk, you sound like you're an honorable guy.
2. The second type of fraud, though, involves a more complicated scheme where the SimLord sells land. The new 'owner' resells it to yet another party(there's some more steps involved). That sort of 3rd and 4th party abuse is very difficult to stop. Friends of mine have lost hundreds of US dollars to that scam.
The second type is why I don't allow 'resale' of land on my sims. And since I don't allow resale, I decided it was only fair for ME not to sell, but to lease.

I do give a discount for advance payments of the lease. (for example, pay the lease for 3 months in advance and get a week free, and a 10% discount. Actual rate reduction depends upon how much advance payment.)

Financially, the difference between our approaches, Jakk, sounds more like 'packaging' than substance.