Land Use Fees Tier Levels

[Sir Pancake]

Got tired of crappy landlords price gouging, so I acquired a full mainland sim on the auction site today. My previous land use fees were $0 for a 1,024 sqm parcel I own. I just noticed that my account summary page says my next billing date is 6/24. So, does that mean I'm going to have to pay $175 after bumping up to this new land allotment for only 6 days? 😭

[MoiraKathleen]

Yes, mainland tier is billed at the highest amount of land you've owned since the last billing date.  So, if you acquired a full mainland region between your May 24 billing and your upcoming June 24 billing, you will be charged for the full mainland region tier - even if you had only owned it for a few minutes.   

[Sir Pancake]

On the second life billing policies page, the language makes it sound like if you don't have a recurring monthly fee, (which I didn't, because my land use was at $0) the land use fee would be 30 days following the first purchase of land that incurs a monthly fee.

"Land Use Fees will be billed 30 days following the first land purchase for users not already paying recurring monthly fees. Land Use Fees will be billed on the first billing date following the in-world land purchase for users already paying recurring monthly fees."

[MoiraKathleen]

You will need to contact Billing Support to find out exactly why the 24th was set as your billing date. Contact information is on this Knowledge Base article:

 

Just off the top of my head, the date may have been triggered by when you purchased your 1024 sqm parcel, even though your tier payment for it is $0.  

I'm not sure what you are planning on doing with the full region, but even if you were to sell or abandon all or part of it,  you would still pay at least 1 billing date at the full mainland region tier rate, even if the billing date was 30 days from now instead of the 24th.

[Sir Pancake]

Thanks for your help. I'm definitely not planning on selling or abandoning. I think you're right, that I'll end up having to pay on the 24th. But, I sent a ticket to billing support to see what they say. The billing policy is quite confusing if they're considering the $0 tier level as a recurring monthly fee.

[Mollymews]

1 hour ago, Tastee Puddles said:

The billing policy is quite confusing if they're considering the $0 tier level as a recurring monthly fee.

i agree with this. Definitely query it with Support if you have never purchased mainland or have had a Linden Home

[Sister Nova]

There are two dates on my account page. The upper date in ‘Account Summary’ is called ‘Next billing renewal date’ and relates to my premium account payment, and then lower on the page in the section marked ‘Land Holdings’ is ‘Next bill date’. This next bill date is when the tier on my account is charged each month, and that is usually set as the date in the month following the acquisition of any land where a tier payment is first required. If I were to subsequently reduce my holdings so that no tier was payable, the date for any future tier payments required if I then purchased more at a later time, would always fall on that date in the month.

One of my accounts has the same date for both each month as that a/c bought extra land (so that tier would be paid) on the same day as becoming premium.

[Sir Pancake]

Just an update: support was not very helpful at all. They gave me a general answer that I must have owned mainland already. It seems they have not done any research to verify this. I had mainland with monthly fees at some point years ago. I had at least a 3 year gap where I was not active on SL with no active premium account or any land whatsoever. I just returned this February and reactivated my premium account in March. They surely can't be referring to the fact I had possibly owned some mainland years ago?

Now, I had opened the ticket on the 19th, with no activity as yesterday, the 23rd. I started a online chat yesterday (the day before the set billing date) to follow up. I got the general answer which I responded to. Now, I just received an email saying the chat created a duplicate ticket which was merged. However, the tickets now show closed and marked resolved with no further explanation. 🤬 Very frustrating...

[Chic Aeon]

18 minutes ago, Tastee Puddles said:

I had mainland with monthly fees at some point years ago.

There is your answer and unfortunately a spendy "mistake". 

 

I got caught on this some years ago -- maybe eight.  Confused I even called up BILLING before purchasing the land and asked about tier costs. Unfortunately the lady in billing didn't know what she was talking about and still gave me an answer. It was the WRONG answer LOL and I had to pay for just a very few days. Back then our billing date wasn't listed on our back end. Happily it is now and so it is really important to be aware of this. 

 

Also for folks reading this, that date has nothing at all to do with private leased land -- only Linden owned land. 

 

So likely your post helped some folks and I am betting you will not forget -- I certainly didn't :D.   LL makes a lot of money off of "land mistakes" I am guessing.  Not necessarily purposefully but it is very very confusing except to  a handful of folks that spend a lot of time with land and land alts and land groups etc etc etc  :D.   So welcome to the club and sorry this was such an expensive error.   

 

[Sister Nova]

On 6/19/2020 at 1:59 PM, Sister Nova said:

If I were to subsequently reduce my holdings so that no tier was payable, the date for any future tier payments required if I then purchased more at a later time, would always fall on that date in the month.

As I mentioned earlier, once tier has been accrued you'll always have that date set even if you go for a period without tier being incurred, or indeed even if you drop down to basic and become premium again at a later time.

[Sir Pancake]

Yikes! That's terrible if I last owned mainland say 7 years ago to still have this billing date set in the system. Although it's so illogical, expensive lesson learned. 🥴

Thanks to all who helped clarify this for me. 😊

[Sister Nova]

On the bright side... I hope you have great fun with your new land  

[LittleMe Jewell]

On 6/24/2020 at 3:22 PM, Tastee Puddles said:

Just an update: support was not very helpful at all. They gave me a general answer that I must have owned mainland already. It seems they have not done any research to verify this. I had mainland with monthly fees at some point years ago. I had at least a 3 year gap where I was not active on SL with no active premium account or any land whatsoever. I just returned this February and reactivated my premium account in March. They surely can't be referring to the fact I had possibly owned some mainland years ago?
 

If at any time you EVER owned Mainland or a Linden Home, your tier billing date gets set upon first tier usage, even if the bill amount is $0 because you are within your allowed tier amount (used to be 512 and is now 1024).   Even if you sell your property or abandon your Linden Home, the bill date stays associated with your account. If you drop Premium and then get it again, you'll still have the same monthly billing date as you had the first time around.

Found all that out with one of my alt accounts.