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Tip: To find out who owns a particular region, select World > Place Profile > Region/Estate > Covenant and locate the listing for Owner. If the owner is listed as (none), the region is owned by Linden Lab. |
Estates versus Private Regions
An estate is a term for a group of one or more Private Regions that belong to one Resident.
- Each square on the map is a region.
- A Resident can own many estates.
- An estate can never have less than one region.
- Regions owned by different Residents cannot be in the same estate.
Regions in the same estate share certain common settings, including but not limited to:
- Ban lists
- Sun settings
- Estate managers
There are a few other differences:
- There is no charge to change an estate name, but there is a nominal charge to change a Private Region name.
- You can request transfer of ownership of regions, but not entire estates.
Private Regions overview
Private Regions are regions in Second Life that are explicitly paid for and controlled by a Resident.
In general, Private Region ownership is an excellent choice for Residents who:
- Wish to enjoy land ownership separate from the ever-changing Second Life mainland.
- Want to build and control a Second Life experience without adjacent neighbors.
- Require more land controls than those provided on the mainland.
- Want to name the region their land is in (within the naming guidelines).
Additional types of Private Regions
In addition to standard Private Regions, existing region owners may purchase Homestead Regions and Openspace Regions. Homesteads and Openspaces are less expensive than standard Private Regions but are designed for lighter use and can support fewer objects and avatars than a normal region.
You may also choose to convert one or more of your Private Regions into multiple Openspaces or Homesteads, or you may choose to convert some of your Openspaces or Homesteads to different region types. After any conversion, you must always have at least one standard Private Region remaining. For full details on converting between different region types, see Converting Private Regions.
Homestead Regions
A Homestead is a type of Private Region intended for such purposes as:
- Low-density rentals
- Light commercial use
- Quiet residential use
Other specifications for Homesteads include:
- Available to full region owners only
- Lower price than a full region
- Events and classifieds are permitted
- Comes with lower usage limits than full regions:
- Land capacity set at 3750
- Concurrent avatar limit set at 20
Pricing for Homesteads is as follows:
- Setup fee of $375
- Monthly fee of $125
Openspace Regions
Openspace Regions are a type of Private Region intended for light use such as water, hills, or forest. They are not intended for building, home rentals, or events. To own an Openspace Region, you must also own a normal Private Region.
Openspace specifications include:
- Available to full region owners only
- Lower price than a full region or Homestead
- Events and classifieds are not permitted
- Comes with lower usage limits than full regions or Homesteads:
- Land capacity set at 750
- Concurrent avatar limit set at 10
- Setup fee of $250
- Monthly fee of $75
For more information about Openspace Regions, see the article titled Openspace Regions.
Buying Private Regions
For information on how to purchase and set up your own Private Region, see the article titled Buying Private Regions.
Land parcels on your regions
Parcels can be sold to other Residents, but you remain responsible for the monthly payments. You can make arrangements for these new parcel owners to pay you for use of the estate, but that's between you and the other Residents. Many estate owners use the estate's covenant to explain their payment structure.
Transferring or canceling Private Region ownership
You have a couple of options:
- You may transfer ownership of the Private Region to another Resident. This requires both you and the buyer to enter support tickets with certain details about the transaction. See Managing Private Regions for more details on the transfer process, cost, and timeframe.
- You may abandon your Private Region to Linden Lab. There is no fee to do so. No refunds will be given, and you will have the use of your region until the end of the current billing cycle. You need to notify the Concierge staff of your intention by submitting a ticket.
- Go to the Support Portal and click New Ticket Submission.
- In the Ticket Type dropdown, select Land and Region Issues.
- In the Region Request dropdown, select Region Cancellation Request.
- Fill out the requested details, and at the bottom, click Finish to submit the ticket.
You can see billing dates and fees for all of your Private Regions at the Land Portal. If your Private Region fees are invoiced, you can see the date your billing cycle ends by logging into your Netsuite account.
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Note: If your next billing date falls within 5 business days of when you submit the ticket, please notify Concierge by phone or chat, so that you will not be billed automatically. Provide your ticket number in that conversation. |
When your ticket is processed, you'll receive a response indicating that the region will be taken offline on its next billing date and that you will not be charged any further maintenance fees. Please pick up or return any content on the region; any inventory remaining after the billing date will be deleted.
Estates overview
An estate is a named collection of one or more Private Regions. Estate-level controls allow you to administer and make adjustments to all regions in a given estate. Since all Private Regions must be in an estate, all Private Region owners are also estate owners by default, even if you only have one Private Region.
Estate owners can:
- Acquire a large amount of land easily.
- Enjoy land ownership separate from the ever-changing Second Life mainland.
- Build and control their Second Life experience without adjacent neighbors.
- Exercise more land controls than those provided on the mainland.
- Name the regions they own.
Transferring or canceling an estate
It is possible to transfer an estate by transferring all Private Regions in the estate to another Resident. For details on transferring Private Regions, see the Managing Private Regions.
If you would like to terminate ownership of an estate without transferring it, please submit a support case of the type Land & Region > Region Cancellation Request, with all the relevant fields completed.
Additional features and controls for Private Regions and Estates
Estate owners possess a broad array of powers and options for maintaining their Private Regions and shaping them to fit their desired appearance. Many of these options can be found in the Second Life Viewer's Region/Estate window. For a more exhaustive list of management options such as region rollbacks, covenants, and terraforming tools, see Managing Private Regions.
