Now I have bought some land, I have a few questions...

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

So I have bought some land, and I ended up not needing to use auctions, and was able to buy for the group. So no land fees - nice. But one of the accounts in the group (not the group owner) has a premium membership that expires soon, and I don't want to renew, so their contribution to the group will stop, and I'll start paying land fees.

Questions:

- I'm assuming that when land is group owned, the charge goes through the account who is the group owner, am I correct? Do I need to set anything manually in the Land Use Fees page or is that adjusted automatically? (If it doesn't go through the group owner, how does it work?)

- As other premium accounts that contribute land to the group expire, my land use fees will be increasing - again, do I need to do anything or will that be dynamically adjusted and the money taken from the payment method SL has on file for the account?

- Should I want to split the cost between different accounts (yeah, I know, at the end of the day, it all goes to the same person…me), is it possible to do that? I ask because at some point, I'll be about 1535 sqm short, and it's a little bit cheaper to pay the fees for 512sqm + 1024sqm, than to pay 2048 sqm, which is what I would be charged for. (Hey, a dollar is a dollar, and I'm in Europe, so VAT is a fifth of the price on top of that - don't judge me…)

- And finally… should I want to sell some Linden dollars and get some US dollars, can I use those US dollars to pay land use fees? I'm assuming that selling Linden Dollars puts $ in my Tillia account? Can I then use these amounts for land fees directly from my Tillia account? Do I need to provide "government-issued identification" to do so? As far as I can tell, that doesn't count as taking money out of SL, so it looks like no, I won't need to provide verification, but I'd like to double-check.

Free chocolate - er, I mean heartfelt thanks - to anybody who might answer - I know it's a lot of questions, but it seemed better to put them all in one thread than create several smaller ones.

Thanks again, and if the answers to my questions have already been covered somewhere, feel free to point me in the right direction.

[Qie Niangao]

The land-owning group needs to maintain enough contributed tier, doesn't matter whence that contribution comes. So it's up to you and your alts how y'all split up the donations, but you'll need to keep sufficient total tier donated to cover all the land the group owns. (This can lapse for short periods which is kind of essential for moving land around between groups, etc, ... but not forever.) You'll want to manage your accounts allowed tier -- see "Update Tier" on the Accounts' "Land Use Fees" pages.to have the right amount available to make the donations, which you manage in the group's Land/Assets tab. Might want to look at the Knowledge Base article about group owned land if you haven't already.

An account's US$ balance can certainly be used to pay tier fees; I'm not 100% clear if there's been any change at all now with Tilia holding the balance.

[BJoyful]

@hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian  You may want to consider that each Premium account receives 1024 square meters free PLUS the weekly stipend of L$300, so that reduces the nest cost of a Premium membership to approx USD $30 to $40 per year (if you consider the value of the Stipend) and divided by 12 months (if prepaid yearly) that works out to be about USD $3.00 to $3.50 per month (depending on the Lindex value) vs paying for an extra 1024 square metres which will cost USD $7 per month. 

I think it would be more expensive to split the extra 1024 between 2 accounts as each would pay for an extra 512 square meters, which is the lowest level of tier and would be an extra USD $4.00 per month each.

I'm not sure if there's a way to use a Tilia balance or if L$ can be used to pay for tier.  

Have a great day!

[Alwin Alcott]

43 minutes ago, BJoyful said:

i'm not sure if there's a way to use a Tilia balance or if L$ can be used to pay for tier. 

Tier is paid in $, spare $ on the balance are handled as before, Billing will first take the ones on the balance, and if non, or not enough, it will use the payment method.

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

44 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

Tier is paid in $, spare $ on the balance are handled as before, Billing will first take the ones on the balance, and if non, or not enough, it will use the payment method.

@Alwin Alcott Excellent - thanks for clarifying that.

 @BJoyful I did think about using a premium account vs paying land use fees, but that's why I'm trying to find out more about paying the fees, so that I can compare better and can make a decision as to what works best.

 

Now about the premium reducing the cost of an account … I'm not sure I get it (I've seen the argument before), I'm sure I'm missing something. Seems to me it only reduces the actual cost of an account if you take money out of SL (the stipend converted to USD) back into your account. What am I missing? Anyway, I'm flat out not willing to do provide "government-issued identification" in order to do take money out (think of that what you will) so a premium account cost me what a premium account cost me, and I don't get money "back".

 

And I'm in the UK. A premium account in the UK cost £99 + VAT (VAT = sales tax), so £120 per year, £10 (about $13) per month. To me, it looks like it's cheaper to pay land use fees...but I could be wrong. Still  researching.

 

About the extra 1024 sqm - I wouldn't split it. I'm hoping that I can simply replace the land donated to the group with paying for it, hence the questions about which account it comes from, and do I need to do anything or will the system recognise I'm 1024 sqm short and take it from my credit card automatically etc.

 

Further down the line, I will have another accounts being downgraded to basic, and I will end up 1536 sqm short. As far as I know, since land fees gets charged in the following bands: 512, 1024, 2048 etc - so 1536 would be charged in the 2048 band, and I was wondering whether I can "signal" that I'd prefer one account in the group to be charged 512 sqm, and another account in the group to be charged 1024 sqm, rather than one be charged for 2028sqm.

Edited September 11, 2020 by hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
spelling

[Alwin Alcott]

10 minutes ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Seems to me it only reduces the actual cost of an account if you take money out of SL (the stipend converted to USD) back into your account. What am I missing? Anyway, I'm flat out not willing to do provide "government-issued identification" in order to do take money out (think of that what you will) so a premium account cost me what a premium account cost me, and I don't get money "back".

 

And I'm in the UK. A premium account in the UK cost £99 + VAT (VAT = sales tax), so £120 per year, £10 (about $13) per month. To me, it looks like it's cheaper to pay land use fees...but I could be wrong. Still  researching.

 

Further down the line, I will have another accounts being downgraded to basic, and I will end up 1536 sqm short. As far as I know, since land fees gets charged in the following bands: 512, 1024, 2048 etc - so 1536 would be charged in the 2048 band, and I was wondering whether I can "signal" that I'd prefer one account in the group to be charged 512 sqm, and another account in the group to be charged 1024 sqm, rather than one be charged for 2028sqm.

even if you don't turn the stipend in USD it will be a profit... you don't need to buy the L$  you get weekly, if you want to buy things inworld.. you got them already...

Yearly premium has no added VAT, the monthly and quarterly do.

For the donating tier: a premium account with added tier level 1024 can donate 2048sqm ... a premium with added 2048 tier level 3072  ( the 1024 included in the premium is added to the tier level you use to level up)

Edited September 11, 2020 by Alwin Alcott

[Qie Niangao]

7 minutes ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Now about the premium reducing the cost of an account … I'm not sure I get it (I've seen the argument before), I'm sure I'm missing something. Seems to me it only reduces the actual cost of an account if you take money out of SL (the stipend converted to USD) back into your account. What am I missing? 

I think the argument about stipends reducing the cost of an account is generally made with the assumption that you'd be buying that much L$ currency anyway, so it reduces the net cost accordingly. But even if you were going to use the very same L$s, converted to US$s to pay tier or the premium fee itself, you do not have to "take money out of SL" when you simply sell it on the LindeX to convert it to US$s, making it available for use paying tier or premium fees.

That's in contrast to actually "cashing out" to receive that US$ balance in your PayPal or other external account. For that, there'd be no choice but to supply all the identity documentation FinCen demands. It's not a Tilia nor Second Life nor Linden Research Inc thing; it's a US Treasury thing.

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

14 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

even if you don't turn the stipend in USD it will be a profit... you don't need to buy the L$  you get weekly, if you want to buy things inworld.. you got them already...

Right. OK, so I'm not missing anything, that's what I thought people meant when they say that... thanks!

 

Yearly premium has no added VAT, the monthly and quarterly do.

aaaaahhhhhhhhhh - thank you for that - it does change my calculations!

For the donating tier: a premium account with added tier level 1024 can donate 2048sqm ... a premium with added 2048 tier level 3072  ( the 1024 included in the premium is added to the tier level you use to level up)

Sorry, I dont understand what you're trying to say?

 

7 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I think the argument about stipends reducing the cost of an account is generally made with the assumption that you'd be buying that much L$ currency anyway, so it reduces the net cost accordingly. But even if you were going to use the very same L$s, converted to US$s to pay tier or the premium fee itself, you do not have to "take money out of SL" when you simply sell it on the LindeX to convert it to US$s, making it available for use paying tier or premium fees.

That's in contrast to actually "cashing out" to receive that US$ balance in your PayPal or other external account. For that, there'd be no choice but to supply all the identity documentation FinCen demands. It's not a Tilia nor Second Life nor Linden Research Inc thing; it's a US Treasury thing.

Excellent - that's what I was wondering about. Thank you!

 

[Alwin Alcott]

25 minutes ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

For the donating tier: a premium account with added tier level 1024 can donate 2048sqm ... a premium with added 2048 tier level 3072  ( the 1024 included in the premium is added to the tier level you use to level up)

Sorry, I dont understand what you're trying to say?

you have 1024 sqm included in your premium. If you up your tier level to 1024 you have actually 2048. The extra tier you can select is added to the 1024 already in premium.

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

5 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

you have 1024 sqm included in your premium. If you up your tier level to 1024 you have actually 2048. The extra tier you can select is added to the 1024 already in

Oh, OK, I'm with you. But from the POV of seeing what the most economical way is to pay for a parcel, I'm only interested in the free 1024 that comes with the account. I figure that once that's used up, it doesn't matter what account levels up...

[Pussycat Catnap]

You can structure the 'tier donation anyway you want. You just need to make sure the number here under "Land Available" is >= 0 :

Here you can see my group is using two accounts to get it's total:

(2048+512)*1.1 = 2816

(the 1.1 reflects the 10% group bonus)

And you do the donation on Land Use Fees Page ( https://secondlife.com/my/account/landfees.php?lang=en-US  )

 

As you can see, I also have '1024' still listed under 'Available Square Meters' - that's because I used that bit to get a Linden Home.

 

Check these three places and make sure your own numbers add up right. The first two images are panels in my land group.

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by Pussycat Catnap

[BJoyful]

5 hours ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Oh, OK, I'm with you. But from the POV of seeing what the most economical way is to pay for a parcel, I'm only interested in the free 1024 that comes with the account. I figure that once that's used up, it doesn't matter what account levels up...

Maybe as no VAT is charged on a yearly Premium Membership it would serve your needs to just upgrade an extra Alt and donate that Alt’s free 1024 to the same land group?  (Then maybe no account would need to downgrade to Basic, perhaps just one upgrade from Basic to Premium).
I’m very glad you posted these questions as the answers and info others already know has answered some questions I also had about the same thing ☺️ 

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

11 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

You can structure the 'tier donation anyway you want. You just need to make sure the number here under "Land Available" is >= 0 :

Here you can see my group is using two accounts to get it's total:

(2048+512)*1.1 = 2816

(the 1.1 reflects the 10% group bonus)

And you do the donation on Land Use Fees Page ( https://secondlife.com/my/account/landfees.php?lang=en-US  )

 

As you can see, I also have '1024' still listed under 'Available Square Meters' - that's because I used that bit to get a Linden Home.

 

Check these three places and make sure your own numbers add up right. The first two images are panels in my land group.

 

@Pussycat Catnap THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! That's exactly the information I needed.

Purely out of curiosity, what happens if I don't do that, or don't do it right, for whatever reason? I mean, I AM going to do the right thing...but I'm curious: does the system have internal checks to make sure people/ accounts pay the right amount?

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

11 hours ago, BJoyful said:

Maybe as no VAT is charged on a yearly Premium Membership it would serve your needs to just upgrade an extra Alt and donate that Alt’s free 1024 to the same land group?  (Then maybe no account would need to downgrade to Basic, perhaps just one upgrade from Basic to Premium).
I’m very glad you posted these questions as the answers and info others already know has answered some questions I also had about the same thing ☺️ 

Yeah, I've crunched the numbers, and using a premium account is about the same price as paying land use fees, in my specific circumstances, so that's probably what I'll end up doing. It's good if the info contained in this thread can be useful to anybody else - there's not much out there (that I could find easily) that deals with managing group land with respect to payment of land use fees, in a really practical way (ie in a way that similar to what Pussycat Catnap outlined above).

I've assumed in my calculations that land use fees ARE subject to VAT - do you know otherwise @Alwin Alcott ?

 

[Alwin Alcott]

6 minutes ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

 

I've assumed in my calculations that land use fees ARE subject to VAT - do you know otherwise @Alwin Alcott ?

 

yes landfees (tier) are subject to VAT, ( not specific asked in this thread, but also region purchase and maintenance fees for private regions are subject to VAT)

Edited September 12, 2020 by Alwin Alcott

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

1 minute ago, Alwin Alcott said:

yes landfess are subject to VAT

Thanks! 😀

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Thanks! 😀

see here .. btw... if you'r in the UK ... thats soon no EU anymore, while LL specificly speaks about EU countries.

https://secondlife.com/corporate/vat.php

[Qie Niangao]

1 hour ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Purely out of curiosity, what happens if I don't do that, or don't do it right, for whatever reason? I mean, I AM going to do the right thing...but I'm curious: does the system have internal checks to make sure people/ accounts pay the right amount?

The way it's supposed to work is that you won't be able to purchase land nor donate tier unless you've set sufficient Land Use Fees for the account. Buying land does, however, pop up a window that allows you to increase the account's Land Use Fees setting without needing to go to that page, and (I'm pretty sure) bidding on an auction is granting permission for those Land Use Fees to be increased if necessary if your bid wins the auction.

The radio button controls on that page should be disabled for any amount smaller than the land already committed by individual land ownership and contribution to group tier.

Going the other way, an account is only supposed to be billed for the tier corresponding to the most land owned during the past 30 day billing period, so even if you reduce land holdings without going into that page to reduce the setting, the bill should automatically drop to the correct amount in the appropriate billing cycle. Note, though, that the "appropriate billing cycle" might end as much as 60 days afterwards if the land is shed at the very beginning of a billing cycle. There have been reports of this reduction not happening automatically, but I'm not sure those incidents weren't merely because of this lag of billing in arrears.

[Alwin Alcott]

24 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

 There have been reports of this reduction not happening automatically, but I'm not sure those incidents weren't merely because of this lag of billing in arrears.

And it's not working for groups. Donated land is seen as used tier. If the group doesn't own land, but has got donation it's tier in use for the donator.

[Pussycat Catnap]

6 hours ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

@Pussycat Catnap THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!! That's exactly the information I needed.

Purely out of curiosity, what happens if I don't do that, or don't do it right, for whatever reason? I mean, I AM going to do the right thing...but I'm curious: does the system have internal checks to make sure people/ accounts pay the right amount?

I think... that I read somewhere... (as in, I'm not sure) that if you have a negative number in the "Land Available" value, that in some number of hours, your land will be auto-abandoned on you.

I've never tested this... I think it can also negatively impact your account, which is why I've decided to avoid testing it. I have had negative values for very short periods of time when swapping land around between groups or trading it to friends... but I've always tried to keep these as short as possible - like working urgently to get the value back up to 0 or above.

 

[AdminGirl]

On 9/13/2020 at 4:09 AM, Pussycat Catnap said:

I think... that I read somewhere... (as in, I'm not sure) that if you have a negative number in the "Land Available" value, that in some number of hours, your land will be auto-abandoned on you.

I've never tested this... I think it can also negatively impact your account, which is why I've decided to avoid testing it. I have had negative values for very short periods of time when swapping land around between groups or trading it to friends... but I've always tried to keep these as short as possible - like working urgently to get the value back up to 0 or above.

 

Yeah I think I read that somewhere too and I think it's 72 hours. I'd play on the safe side as well. Knowing me, if I leave it for more than 30 mins, I'm likely to forget until it's too late!

Edited September 13, 2020 by AdminGirl

[Chic Aeon]

On 9/11/2020 at 9:57 AM, Qie Niangao said:

I think the argument about stipends reducing the cost of an account is generally made with the assumption that you'd be buying that much L$ currency anyway, so it reduces the net cost accordingly. But even if you were going to use the very same L$s, converted to US$s to pay tier or the premium fee itself, you do not have to "take money out of SL" when you simply sell it on the LindeX to convert it to US$s, making it available for use paying tier or premium fees.

That's in contrast to actually "cashing out" to receive that US$ balance in your PayPal or other external account. For that, there'd be no choice but to supply all the identity documentation FinCen demands. It's not a Tilia nor Second Life nor Linden Research Inc thing; it's a US Treasury thing.

I think there was some misinformation (not this post) along the way up there but hopefully that will get sorted out.  So anyone not clear please double check :D.  

 

But I did want to reply to this idea in the first paragraph. While the stipend argument is often put forth by those that buy lindens, I have never purchased lindens and it still applies.  Back when membership was $72US (and some folks are still paying that for awhile) a 4096 with four avatars (not all me) paying premium cost in total $5.00 ish a  month depending on conversion value -- that is TOTAL not each.  When premium went up I did the math (this all based on YEARLY PAYMENT which I didn't see mentioned but VERY important).  It was still cheaper to do the "alt" method than to pay the land fee.   This if you never spend any of the stipend and then just convert to US and add a tiny bit (hopefully from earnings) and let your USD balance pay the tier. 

 

I switched to renting using lindens but not because of the savings. You CAN still rent cheaper than paying premium for tier -- if you shop around. So it also depends on what other premium perks you care about and if you really need COMPLETE power over your plot.  And if you want to agree to the Tilia documents too of course :D. 

 

 

 

 

 

[hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian]

21 hours ago, Alwin Alcott said:

see here .. btw... if you'r in the UK ... thats soon no EU anymore, while LL specificly speaks about EU countries.

https://secondlife.com/corporate/vat.php

LOL, now that is an interesting point! Now much I can do about it, of course, but it means in theory, the UK could choose to stop slapping VAT on top of most things... but apparently the value of VAT to the government is about £120 billions/ year (I could be wrong, I only did a quick  scan, so don't quote me - it's a LOT of money, at any rate). So the probability of VAT disappearing from tier (to stay within the context of SL) is probably quite...remote. And either LL will keep UK as part of Europe for their accounting purpose, or there will be a separate TOS for UK only, but from a user's POV, it doesn't make that much difference (I think).

19 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

The way it's supposed to work is that you won't be able to purchase land nor donate tier unless you've set sufficient Land Use Fees for the account. Buying land does, however, pop up a window that allows you to increase the account's Land Use Fees setting without needing to go to that page, and (I'm pretty sure) bidding on an auction is granting permission for those Land Use Fees to be increased if necessary if your bid wins the auction.

The radio button controls on that page should be disabled for any amount smaller than the land already committed by individual land ownership and contribution to group tier.

Going the other way, an account is only supposed to be billed for the tier corresponding to the most land owned during the past 30 day billing period, so even if you reduce land holdings without going into that page to reduce the setting, the bill should automatically drop to the correct amount in the appropriate billing cycle. Note, though, that the "appropriate billing cycle" might end as much as 60 days afterwards if the land is shed at the very beginning of a billing cycle. There have been reports of this reduction not happening automatically, but I'm not sure those incidents weren't merely because of this lag of billing in arrears.

Thanks - good to know. I actually tested what happens when you try and reduce land holdings to an amount that's less than the amount necessary to hold the land, by having an account that is definitely going back to basic [account 1] setting their contribution to 0, and the system would not let me do it. So I used another account [account 2] to make up the shortfall (the way Pussycat Catnap outlined above), and then I was able to remove the contribution from [account 2]. (Just thought that info might be useful to somebody...)

 

14 hours ago, Pussycat Catnap said:

I think... that I read somewhere... (as in, I'm not sure) that if you have a negative number in the "Land Available" value, that in some number of hours, your land will be auto-abandoned on you.

I've never tested this... I think it can also negatively impact your account, which is why I've decided to avoid testing it. I have had negative values for very short periods of time when swapping land around between groups or trading it to friends... but I've always tried to keep these as short as possible - like working urgently to get the value back up to 0 or above.

 

Ouch, yes, best to work on avoiding that...but it's good to know there IS that possibility, if it's unavoidable - thanks!

14 hours ago, AdminGirl said:

Yeah I think I read that somewhere too and I think it's 72 hours. I'd play on the safe side as well. Knowing me, if I leave it for more than 30 mins, I'm likely to forget before it's too late!

72 hours? That's actually very generous. I agree, though - best done straight away. I know I might forget too.

15 hours ago, Chic Aeon said:

I think there was some misinformation (not this post) along the way up there but hopefully that will get sorted out.  So anyone not clear please double check :D.  

 

But I did want to reply to this idea in the first paragraph. While the stipend argument is often put forth by those that buy lindens, I have never purchased lindens and it still applies.  Back when membership was $72US (and some folks are still paying that for awhile) a 4096 with four avatars (not all me) paying premium cost in total $5.00 ish a  month depending on conversion value -- that is TOTAL not each.  When premium went up I did the math (this all based on YEARLY PAYMENT which I didn't see mentioned but VERY important).  It was still cheaper to do the "alt" method than to pay the land fee.   This if you never spend any of the stipend and then just convert to US and add a tiny bit (hopefully from earnings) and let your USD balance pay the tier. 

 

I switched to renting using lindens but not because of the savings. You CAN still rent cheaper than paying premium for tier -- if you shop around. So it also depends on what other premium perks you care about and if you really need COMPLETE power over your plot.  And if you want to agree to the Tilia documents too of course :D. 

 

Yeah, as far as I can tell, this works for UK accounts as well, even with the 20% VAT. I could be wrong, though, and it probably breaks down at higher numbers.

I did sell some L$ and they went into my US$ Tilia account, and I can confirm that I did not have to go through a confirmation page for that (obviously, I did not try to take them out).

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're renting and pay for it with L$ you bought, you also don't need to agree to the Tilia agreement? Am I misunderstanding you @Chic Aeon?  (it's a long time since I bought L$)

 

Anyway, thanks to everybody for the feedback - it's been very useful.

 

[Mollymews]

16 hours ago, AdminGirl said:

Yeah I think I read that somewhere too and I think it's 72 hours.

yes you are correct. After 72 hours Linden will start making contact to get their money, and when they don't get it then sometime/anytime after this they start reclaiming land

is here under heading; Excess group land

 

[Chic Aeon]

3 hours ago, hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian said:

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're renting and pay for it with L$ you bought, you also don't need to agree to the Tilia agreement? Am I misunderstanding you @Chic Aeon?  (it's a long time since I bought L$)

So far (and hopefully forever) that is true.  I have not agreed to Tilia TOS  or US privacy statement (it WAS very different than the one for other countries when it first came out ;  I haven't checked since then).   You NOW (since May) "automatically agree" (no check box the last time I tested which was recently) to both of those when either buying linden dollars or adding a credit card. 

 

LOGICALLY if your credit card is on file you most likely can let it charge you automatically for a premium membership (as in yearly) and you would not have (in theory) agreed to the Tilia TOS or Privacy statement since you would have never seen that text on the way to changing credit card.  I am not interested enough to find out for sure though.     

 

PS:   I am currently renting a homestead region, three residential plots (one is to pay for extra prims for the others).  Soon I will be renting a biggish area in Babbage for a Halloween build.  So I am still part of the economy, just not "mine" :D.  

Edited September 13, 2020 by Chic Aeon
spelling and adding info