What happens to abandoned accounts and land

[l3m35]

Hello, I'm writing about SL but I admit I still confused about some details, especially premium accounts. Maybe someone experienced here can help me.

I understand that abandoned lands (accounts without regular payment) will be returned to "Governor Linden" ownership, right? So Linden Labs can do whatever they want, like auctions. Today (according to gridsurvey, not sure if it's a reliable source) there is around 21% of abandoned land on the main grid.

But what about everything that was created/rezzed there by ex-owners? Like house, furniture, cars, etc? Are they returned to account's inventories? I'm asking because I use to fly over randomly, and I see a lot of what seems to be residential areas, parks, thematics sims, etc, totally empty, supposedly abandoned; sometimes very large areas with lots of stuff and no one around. Can I assume there is still someone paying to keep all those things there, or is it on Linden Labs "expenses"?

Thank you.

[Alwin Alcott]

in general abandoned lands have not a lot to do with abandoned accounts, nearly all abandoned land is released lands by active accounts.

- abandoned land is land that is released by residents to LL without new resident owner, for example to lower tier fast, or it takes to long to hold for selling and abandoning is cheaper than keep  paying the tier levels.
- abandoned accounts are just that, accounts left behind on the servers by their subscribers,  very few abandoned accounts hold lands

if a account gets abandoned ánd holds land, ánd keeps paying ( happens ....) nothing changes, the account keeps the land
if a account gets abandoned ánd holds land, ánd stops paying, LL will reclaim the land after some time and add it to the big chunk of abandoned lands, or auctions it, or sells it to another resident who asks for it after being in the abandoned landpool.

If you see lot of land without users means not really a lot... there are 24 timezones, you'r most likely not online the same time as others.. and a lot of land can look empty, but still have people living there in skyboxes at hights up to 4096 meters.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Alwin Alcott
so many "abandoned"... some got abandonened

[Polenth Yue]

In the past, abandoned land didn't automatically send stuff back to the owner and didn't automatically block people from rezzing items on the land. The result was some abandoned land had a lot of stuff on it. There's always a slim possibility that a very old piece of abandoned land remains somewhere with those settings, but I haven't seen any like that for years. These days, the default settings for abandoned land will stop people from using it as a free building area.

It's more likely that the land belongs to someone, which you can check by seeing who owns it in the land details. Even land in use won't tend to have huge crowds. People visit my shop, but they don't hang there all day. The chances of you running by at just the right moment are pretty slim.

[Claireschen Hesten]

If someone does go AWOL from SL and their tier isn't being paid after a period of time access to the land parcel will be blocked anything rezzed will remain for a week or so owners might be able to retrieve their objects via neighbouring land otherwise the land gets cleared by a Linden i have seen Guy Linden doing things connected to abandoned land in my home sim and objects are returned to their owners the land reverts to Governor Linden ownership before it's auctioned or sold on

[Qie Niangao]

I kinda assumed they leave the stuff on land for a while after the Governor repossesses it because there's a slim chance the previous owner might come back, remorseful, and arrange to recover the land and pay up the back tier.

Compared to individually owned parcels after the owner quits paying tier, it seems to take longer for group-owned land to be reclaimed after nobody is contributing tier to the group. It used to be possible to check whether an arbitrary group had adequate tier for their land holdings, but the Lab nerfed that, so if your neighboring group-owned land has been idle for ages, the only way to see if it should be abandoned is by filing a support ticket and asking.

These "nonperforming" parcels have always existed, so gridsurvey has always underestimated the share of effectively abandoned Mainland.

[l3m35]

21 hours ago, Polenth Yue said:

There's always a slim possibility that a very old piece of abandoned land remains somewhere with those settings, but I haven't seen any like that for years. These days, the default settings for abandoned land will stop people from using it as a free building area.

Not sure if it's the same situation ("abandoned land"), but yesterday I was flying over the ocean north of Da Boom http://slurl.com/secondlife/Da Boom/128/128/2 when I see three or more green dots on my map. So I decided to go down and ask one of them why they were in the middle of nowhere, under the ocean. She said some people mark places like that as home, to have a lag and troll free zone to be.

I had no idea this is possible and forgot to check the ownership of the region (since there's nothing there, I imagine it belongs to "Governor Linden"). My home is still the welcoming island.

[Qie Niangao]

2 hours ago, l3m35 said:

I had no idea this is possible and forgot to check the ownership of the region (since there's nothing there, I imagine it belongs to "Governor Linden"). My home is still the welcoming island.

You can choose you home location from a range of options. The knowledge base lists some:

Quote

• Land you own
• Land set to group access for a group to which you belong, if you have the necessary ability.  For more information on group land, see Group-owned land.  For more information on group roles and abilities, see Creating, managing, moderating, and disbanding groups.
• Infohubs,

Note that many groups allow any member to set their home to land owned by the group so it's supposed to be easy to find a convenient home location.