What is abandoned land?

Abandoned land is a mainland parcel that has been returned to Linden Lab by the previous owner.

How to abandon land

1. Open the World menu and select About Land. The About Land window opens.
2. In the General tab of the About Land window, click Abandon Land.
3. Review the confirmation and click Ok.

How to tell if land is abandoned

Abandoned land is owned by Governor Linden and contains the term "Abandoned Land" in the parcel name.  The parcel description often includes the name of the previous owner.

Land that is owned by another Resident is not abandoned, even if it appears to be unused.

What happens to abandoned land

When a mainland parcel is abandoned, the ownership of the parcel changes to Governor Linden. Once abandoned, the parcel settings are amended to reflect the abandoned status and auto-return settings are enabled after one week.

What about abandoned Linden Homes?

Abandoned Linden Homes are returned immediately to Governor Linden's ownership, with the objects on the parcel returned to inventory immediately, too. This allows the former owner to choose another Linden Home right away, if they wish, and makes the Linden Home available to new owners as quickly as possible. It's not possible to reclaim a Linden Home abandoned by mistake, though you may try by requesting the same style of home on the Linden Home selection page and it may be randomly assigned to you. Please see our Linden Homes page for more information.

I abandoned my land by mistake!

Unfortunately, you should never expect to be able to reclaim abandoned land, though we will try our best to assist you.  Please use care to make sure that any abandonment action is intentional.  However, if you do make a mistake, please submit a support case as soon as possible. Please include the parcel location and explain that you would like to reclaim a parcel you abandoned by mistake.  We can attempt to make a one-time courtesy effort to recover the land for you.

How to request purchase of abandoned land

To request the sale of abandoned land, submit a support case of the type Land & Region, and choose Abandoned Land from the second dropdown.  Provide the details of your request. In many cases, we can assist by making a larger or smaller sized parcel available rather than the actual parcel that has been requested. If you require a different size parcel than what is currently available, please request the desired size (in square meters) and provide a SLurl to the parcel's location.

We will attempt to assist with a direct sale to the Resident who has made the request, so please submit a ticket as soon as you are aware of the abandoned location. We attempt to give priority to those who already have land in the region, so please let us know if the request is for neighboring or additional land within the same region. We will try to assist with a direct sale of the abandoned land at a the price of L$1 per square meter.

In some cases, abandoned land may not be eligible for a direct sale. In these cases we will attempt to make the land available for sale via the auction system. Here are some of the reasons that requested land may need to be offered as an auction:

• The location has a limited amount of abandoned land in the region.
• The location is neighboring protected land or waterfront.
• The location is in a themed area such as Bay City, Horizons, or Nautilus.
• The location offers bonus object use.
• The location is Adult rated.
• The location is newly abandoned and not known to be available.
• The location is of a significant size, is a full region or close to a full region, or has other intrinsic characteristics that make it particularly desirable to multiple Residents.

These are only guidelines; each request is considered on a case-by-case basis and we may not be able to assist by making an abandoned parcel available as a direct sale or auction. One of the major reasons that abandoned land in these categories is typically sent to auction is because there are frequently multiple Residents who have adjoining parcels or another valid interest in purchasing the parcels, and auctions are the fairest way to ensure that interested parties have an equal chance to acquire the parcel.

While it's possible that an exception might be made in some circumstances, our Land team works hard to ensure that mainland is made available in the most fair, equal, and reasonable way possible, and we appreciate your understanding if our team is not able to issue a direct sale of a particular parcel.

Review of land that looks abandoned

If you find a parcel that appears to be owned by a defunct account or group, there is a possibility that we can make the parcel available for direct sale or for land auction. However, please note that land owned by a valid account or group is not abandoned, even if it appears to be unused.  Please bear in mind that many Residents have annual accounts, and it may take many months for the account status to expire if they have chosen to leave or use a different account. Land cannot be reclaimed simply due to inactivity.

If you have a Plus, Premium, or Premium Plus membership, you can request an auction review for abandoned land by opening a support case with the following information:

1. The parcel's SLurl.
2. The concern that prompted you to investigate the parcel's status.

Please note that Linden Lab will not disclose another Resident's account status details, and that any Resident or Group-owned land that appears defunct may simply be declared 'unavailable'. The Land team regularly reviews parcels that may be owned by a defunct group or Resident, and will make eligible parcels available after review -- generally, looking for land that has 'Abandoned' in the parcel name and has Governor Linden as the owner will be the surest route to a successful request.