Confused about land deed/group/bonus/tier numbers

[LeoAtreides]

Hi, everyone

I'm a a new player and a premium member and I own a 1024m² land (mainland.) In order to get more prims I upped my tier for an additional 512m² land ($4USD per month.) I had to abandon my previous land so I could find both lands on the same sim (that's a requirement, right? I don't want the space, just the prims.) So I bought both (1024m² and 512m²) on the same sim (they're not side by side) and deeded them both to a group I created (I had to add a friend since you can't have a solo group, lol.)  Now I have more prims just like I wanted and this is what is showing in my acc:

Allowed holdings:    1,536.00 square meters
Current holdings:    0.00 square meters
Available for purchase:    139.00 square meters
Peak square meter usage:    1,536.00 square meters
Total monthly cost:    USD 4.00

Land Use Fees:                      

	Current Fees	Estimated Fees
Square meters owned:	0	0
Square meters donated	1397	1397
Premium Bonus in Square Meters	1024	1024
Paid Tier Level:	512	512
Available Square Meters:	139	139
Monthly Cost:*	USD 4.00	USD 4.00

1) I supposed those extra 139m² are the 10% group bonus, right? Should I buy another land up to 139m² will it up my tier to the next one ($7USD per month - 1024m²) or nothing will change?

2) In order to get the prims from this new land it will have to be in the same sim as the others, right?

3) Since I donated both lands why the square meters donated shows 1397 and not 1024+512=1536? Did I do something wrong? Or am I reading/understanding this all wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 

[Qie Niangao]

31 minutes ago, LeoAtreides said:

1) I supposed those extra 139m² are the 10% group bonus, right? Should I buy another land up to 139m² will it up my tier to the next one ($7USD per month - 1024m²) or nothing will change?

2) In order to get the prims from this new land it will have to be in the same sim as the others, right?

3) Since I donated both lands why the square meters donated shows 1397 and not 1024+512=1536? Did I do something wrong? Or am I reading/understanding this all wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help.
 

1. You can buy up to an additional 139m² without it adding to your tier fees. (But you can do better; see below.)
2. Yep, prims are only shared among parcels with the same owner within a region as you correctly surmise.
3. So you donated the land to group along with the necessary tier contribution, and that takes only the minimum amount of tier needed to cover the land, leaving the rest in your individual account. That's how you still have 139m² "available" to buy land as an individual.

If you contribute that 139m² to the group (using the "Land" tab of the Group's info window), it will consume the entire 1536m² as "Square meters donated" to the group. And then the group will get its 10% bonus on that additional contribution, too, so then the group will have 153m² of tier available for additional land.

Because land comes in 16m² chunks, you can only actually buy 144m² -- and you'll want to be careful to use the "Buy for Group" button in About Land rather than needing to tier-up to the next level buying it as an individual without benefit of the group bonus. 

(It's confusing because you can do it two ways: buy the land as an individual and then deed it to group, or first contribute the tier to the group and then buy the land for the group -- but only that latter way lets you use the whole 10% bonus for the full area of the purchase.)

[LeoAtreides]

36 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

If you contribute that 139m² to the group (using the "Land" tab of the Group's info window), it will consume the entire 1536m² as "Square meters donated" to the group. And then the group will get its 10% bonus on that additional contribution, too, so then the group will have 153m² of tier available for additional land.

Thank you, Qie! I just did it and now it shows: 

 

Current Fees	Estimated Fees
Square meters owned: 	0	0
Square meters donated	1536	1536
Premium Bonus in Square Meters	1024	1024
Paid Tier Level:	512	512
Available Square Meters:	0	0
Monthly Cost:*	USD 4.00	USD 4.00

Oh, now it shows "Land Available: 153m²" in the "Land" tab of the Group's info window.

 

36 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

Because land comes in 16m² chunks, you can only actually buy 144m² -- and you'll want to be careful to use the "Buy for Group" button in About Land rather than needing to tier-up to the next level buying it as an individual without benefit of the group bonus. 

Just to see if I got it right. I need to use the "Buy for Group" button instead of buying as an individual and then deeding it to the group, right? This way my tier won't go to the next level, right? I just find a piece of land for sale and click to buy it and choose "Buy for Group?"

Edited March 13, 2019 by LeoAtreides

[Qie Niangao]

Yep, you got it.

If there's any abandoned land on the sim, you might submit a support ticket asking for exactly 144 sq.m. to be set for sale to you, explicitly asking them to choose wherever they want to carve it out. It may not work, but on the other hand, it could be a win-win if they can use that to tidy-up some stray corners somewhere.

[LeoAtreides]

Thank you a lot, Qie. I'm going to do that!

[LeoAtreides]

On 3/13/2019 at 5:11 PM, Qie Niangao said:

Yep, you got it.

If there's any abandoned land on the sim, you might submit a support ticket asking for exactly 144 sq.m. to be set for sale to you, explicitly asking them to choose wherever they want to carve it out. It may not work, but on the other hand, it could be a win-win if they can use that to tidy-up some stray corners somewhere.

Thank you so much, Qie. I opened a ticked and wrote exactly what you just said. And in about 4 days they replied with a link to a piece of land for me to buy and the best part is that they carved it out right next to the one where my house is which made my land larger and a bonus of 49 more prims.

But lucky me I read the screen before I bought it because it said it would up my tier to 7USD so I remembered you said I had to buy it using the "Buy For Group" button in order to maintain my current 4USD tier. And that did it. Thank you again, Qie.

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 3/13/2019 at 12:25 PM, LeoAtreides said:

  a group I created (I had to add a friend since you can't have a solo group, lol.)  

I just noticed the bolded part.  Most of us will recommend creating an alt account and adding that account to the group for the 2-person rule --- because Drama Happens.

Additionally, to further protect yourself in the event that you lose access to your main account for some reason, that alt account should also have the 'owner' role.  

If you decide to have other people in your land group, it is highly recommended that you do not ever make anyone else an 'owner' of the group.  The Owner role cannot be revoked. 

[JazzFire]

When you press the check box for allow deed to group , There is another check box that says " Owner makes contribution with Deed ". What does that mean.

[Parhelion Palou]

5 hours ago, JazzFire said:

When you press the check box for allow deed to group , There is another check box that says " Owner makes contribution with Deed ". What does that mean.

When you deed the land to the group, the group must have enough tier from members to cover the cost of the land. By checking the box, the owner of the group contributes tier to the group. You can find the tier information in the group information window.

Linden homes don't allow deeding the land to a group, and premium tier means nothing on private estates, so the check box can be ignored on those.

[JazzFire]

Thank you

[LeoAtreides]

Hi, guys. It's me again. As mentioned in my previous posts, my current status are:

Current Fees	Estimated Fees
Square meters owned: 	0	0
Square meters donated	1536	1536
Premium Bonus in Square Meters	1024	1024
Paid Tier Level:	512	512
Available Square Meters:	0	0
Monthly Cost:*	USD 4.00	USD 4.00

I've already "bought for group" the extra 153m² which gave me a little more prims.

So currenty I have  one 1024m², one 512m², and  one 153m² pieces of land. But I would like to join them all (1689m².)

Tha being said, my questions are:

1. I only have those extra 153m² because I donated all of my 3 my lands to my Group (just me and my alt.) So if I were to sell my 1536m² land, do I lose those 153m²?

2. If I buy a 1536+153= 1689m² land using the "Buy for Group" option it will automatically add those extra 153m² and will not upgrade my tier to the next level? Or do I have to do it separately again by buying the 1536m² first and only then the extra 153m²?

Edited September 5, 2019 by LeoAtreides

[LittleMe Jewell]

9 hours ago, LeoAtreides said:

Hi, guys. It's me again. As mentioned in my previous posts, my current status are:

Current Fees	Estimated Fees
Square meters owned: 	0	0
Square meters donated	1536	1536
Premium Bonus in Square Meters	1024	1024
Paid Tier Level:	512	512
Available Square Meters:	0	0
Monthly Cost:*	USD 4.00	USD 4.00

I've already "bought for group" the extra 153m² which gave me a little more prims.

So currenty I have  one 1024m², one 512m², and  one 153m² pieces of land. But I would like to join them all (1689m².)

Tha being said, my questions are:

1. I only have those extra 153m² because I donated all of my 3 my lands to my Group (just me and my alt.) So if I were to sell my 1536m² land, do I lose those 153m²?

2. If I buy a 1536+153= 1689m² land using the "Buy for Group" option it will automatically add those extra 153m² and will not upgrade my tier to the next level? Or do I have to do it separately again by buying the 1536m² first and only then the extra 153m²?

The bonus is for the group and applies to tier, which can be used for land.  So whether or not the group actually owns any land, if the group received 1536 sqm of tier donations, then the group has a total of 1689 tier available for use and can thus own a total of 1689 sqm of land.

If you sell your current 1536 land, as long as the group still has the tier donation, then the group still gets the 153 sqm bonus, because the bonus is tied to the tier donated to the group, not to any particular pieces of land. 

If the group does show a total of 1689 sqm available, then you can buy a total of 1689 sqm using the 'Buy for Group' option.  You can buy that much land all in one plot or via multiple plots that total up to 1689.

 

[LeoAtreides]

3 hours ago, LittleMe Jewell said:

If the group does show a total of 1689 sqm available, then you can buy a total of 1689 sqm using the 'Buy for Group' option.  You can buy that much land all in one plot or via multiple plots that total up to 1689.

 

That's what's making me confused. For example, if I sell all my lands (1024, 512, 139) will it still show that I have a total of 1689sqm to buy? I mean doesn't the 10% bonus only apply to the land you bought/donated to the group? If I sell it all I won't have those 139sqm anymore available, just the 1536 to buy (1024+512,) right?

I'm afraid to sell it all and buy a 1689 land and just for a second the system doesn't compute the 10% bonus (139sqm) right away and sees it as above my current tier which will increase automatically even if it was just for a second.

Edited September 6, 2019 by LeoAtreides

[Qie Niangao]

No, as @LittleMe Jewell explained, the 10% group bonus applies to the tier donated to the group, not to the land the group has bought.

Nonetheless, it can be slightly tricky to sell Group-owned land. If the land is sold while still owned by the group then the L$ proceeds will first go to the group and then, overnight, it will be distributed as "group dividends" split among all the group members in Roles (such as Owner) with the Ability to "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends." If you (and/or your alts) are the only group member(s) with that Ability, and if you don't mind waiting up to 24 hours to get the L$s from the sale, no problem.

The problem arises when you don't want to wait for those L$s to be distributed from the Group, and instead try to buy back the land from the group so you can sell it as an individual and take the proceeds immediately upon sale: as an individual, you don't have enough tier to own all that land including the 10% group bonus. Depending how much of the land you really want to sell and how much you want to keep, there may be a way around this problem by temporarily "overdrawing" the group's tier, but it's complicated.

Also, as a safeguard, if you go to the "Land Fees" page of your dashboard and adjust the setting in the Update Tier section to match the amount you're currently paying, you won't be able to incur a higher tier fee without agreeing to override a warning. At least that's how it's supposed to work, and that's how it's always worked for me.

[LeoAtreides]

6 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

No, as @LittleMe Jewell explained, the 10% group bonus applies to the tier donated to the group, not to the land the group has bought.

Nonetheless, it can be slightly tricky to sell Group-owned land. If the land is sold while still owned by the group then the L$ proceeds will first go to the group and then, overnight, it will be distributed as "group dividends" split among all the group members in Roles (such as Owner) with the Ability to "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends." If you (and/or your alts) are the only group member(s) with that Ability, and if you don't mind waiting up to 24 hours to get the L$s from the sale, no problem.

Also, as a safeguard, if you go to the "Land Fees" page of your dashboard and adjust the setting in the Update Tier section to match the amount you're currently paying, you won't be able to incur a higher tier fee without agreeing to override a warning. At least that's how it's supposed to work, and that's how it's always worked for me.

I think I got it. I don't mind waiting, I just wan to do things right and not have my Tier upgraded by mistake. I just did a test-run trying to buy a piece of land and it does warn me if my tier is going up or not before I confirm the purchase. 

Thank you a lot @LittleMe Jewell and @Qie Niangao.