Group (credits?) for mainland

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

I have 1/8 sim mainland which is $35/month, today I deeded the land to my group.  I'm unsure about a msg I received saying something like my group needs to have enough (credits?) for the land.  Do I somehow pay for my mainland through the group or?  I understand that if the land is sold while belonging to the group all group members get an equal share I just don't understand now how the $35 is paid monthly.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[Fritigern Gothly]

When you deed something to a group, like land, or a radio or a contest board or whatever, you are basically giving that thing in ownership to the group.
In other words, the group owns the deeded thing, and in the case of land, the members of the group that the land is deeded to are responsible for paying the land tier. 

This is, however, depended on the role within the group. Some roles (like the Everyone role) can be excluded from having to pay for the land tier. This is a setting which you can toggle per role.
If I recall correctly, the group owner will ALWAYS be paying for the tier on the deeded land, but I could be misremembering.

So yeah, the paying of this tier will now go via the group and the costs will be spread over the members that have roles where they bear responsibility for the land fees.

 

[Qie Niangao]

1 minute ago, Fritigern Gothly said:

So yeah, the paying of this tier will now go via the group and the costs will be spread over the members that have roles where they bear responsibility for the land fees.

Well, not exactly

Tier fees for group-owned land is paid by just those group members who donate tier to the group to cover the land area.

I'm a little worried about whether the OP may be on the hook now for both individually owned land (that they don't actually own anymore, having deeded it to group) and for tier they may have donated to group to cover the land.

Ordinarily I'd say to look at the Land Use Fees page of the dashboard, but mine appears to be confused by Uplift. What we want to know is whether the tier donated (aka "contributed") to the group is in addition to a bunch of now spare tier, freed-up when the land was deeded. I guess one way would be to look at the group's Land tab and see if the user account has way too much additional tier available to contribute, beyond what's taken up by the group's land.

[Rabid Cheetah]

You wanna click the box that says "Owner makes donation with deed" or something like that, so that your available m2's get donated along with the actual parcel.  Otherwise, you'll need to pull up the group, select the land tab, and fiddle with the amount of m2's you donate until the "land available" is no longer negative (or just make it the max amount if you don't plan on using any of the additional m2's beyond what's needed for the parcel in question).

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

Thank you for the replies but  I feel more confused now, I think I'll look through the roles and try to make sure no one else is paying for land.  

Edit: So whoever has this tag pays for Mainland tier correct? "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends"

 

Edited February 23, 2021 by SeeAirAhh Josephina

[Fritigern Gothly]

48 minutes ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

Edit: So whoever has this tag pays for Mainland tier correct? "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends"

That is my understanding, yes. However, this appears to contradict what Qie said about this being limited to only those group members that choose to donate their tier. So like you, I too am confused now.

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

I put in a support ticket because the definition for that ability is, "Members in a Role with this Ability will automatically pay group liabilities and receive group dividends. This means they will receive a portion of group-owned land sales which are distributed daily, as well as contribute towards things like parcel listing fees. " Parcel listing fees are a lot different from paying land tier.

[Rowan Amore]

1 hour ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

I put in a support ticket because the definition for that ability is, "Members in a Role with this Ability will automatically pay group liabilities and receive group dividends. This means they will receive a portion of group-owned land sales which are distributed daily, as well as contribute towards things like parcel listing fees. " Parcel listing fees are a lot different from paying land tier.

Group dividends are distributed equally among all group members who have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability associated with their role. Likewise, all group liabilities are also spread evenly among group members with this ability.

If no one else in the group has this ability, then group liabilities and dividends are paid to the group's owner.  If there are no enabled accounts in the group that have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability, then liabilities and dividends are spread evenly between group members.

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

28 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Group dividends are distributed equally among all group members who have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability associated with their role. Likewise, all group liabilities are also spread evenly among group members with this ability.

If no one else in the group has this ability, then group liabilities and dividends are paid to the group's owner.  If there are no enabled accounts in the group that have the Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends ability, then liabilities and dividends are spread evenly between group members.

What is the definition of liabilities in this case?

[MoondustMaia]

The group itself doesn't pay the monthly land tier - it is the account(s) that donate tier to the group which are charged monthly tier, and their monthly charge is the total of the individual account's land holdings, including tier they have donated to groups.   An account may parcel(s) that they own individually, and the account may also have tier donated to one for more land groups - their monthly charge is the tier level for the total of tier they use and/or donate.  

[MoondustMaia]

3 minutes ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

What is the definition of liabilities in this case?

Generally, things like the charge to have the parcel appear in Search.   

 

9 hours ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

my group needs to have enough (credits?) for the land.

This message probably refers to whether or not the group has enough tier donated to it to cover the size of the parcel.  Those donations are done on the Group -> Land/Assets tab. 

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

12 minutes ago, MoondustMaia said:

The group itself doesn't pay the monthly land tier - it is the account(s) that donate tier to the group which are charged monthly tier, and their monthly charge is the total of the individual account's land holdings, including tier they have donated to groups.   An account may parcel(s) that they own individually, and the account may also have tier donated to one for more land groups - their monthly charge is the tier level for the total of tier they use and/or donate.  

Ahh so tier has nothing to do with group in my case if I'm the only one who has donated the land then I'll be the only one charged.  

[Gabriele Graves]

Tier is what you pay for to own land.  It gives you land credits to the amount you have purchased.  Only Premium accounts can purchase tier from LL and all Premium accounts initially get enough land credits for 1024sqm of land, this is the free tier level, but you can also increase your tier to give you more land credits.  These are the land credits the "Buy Land" dialog box is talking about.

Avatar accounts and groups can own land but one thing is always true.  Whoever owns the land be it avatar account or group, it must hold enough land credits to cover what it owns.  In order to deed land to a group the group must have enough land credits to own it.  This comes from someone donating tier to the group.  Groups can only accumulate tier from avatar accounts.  It gets confusing because tier is what most people refer to and most people don't talk about land credits at all.

In my mind, the probable reason the term "land credits" came about was because you pay for tier at a level but you can donate land credits at smaller increments to that.  You may well have bought 2048sqm level of tier but only be donating 512sqm to a group.  However you are still at that 2048 tier level though so the land credits refers to the smaller amount you are donating.  It was probably done to keep this distinction.  However it doesn't matter because most people will still call it tier instead of land credits.  So moving on...

Because you have land owned by the group, whether you know it or not, you must have donated tier as well when you deeded the land to the group.  It doesn't matter who tier comes from, all that matters is that enough has been donated to that group.  It could be from one avatar account or a hundred avatar accounts.  Tier can be donated independently of the land.  It doesn't even need to be the owner of the group or the original owner of the land.  Once the tier is donated and the land is deeded the land belongs to the group and the group holds enough tier donation for that parcel of land.
Any avatar account can pull their tier out of a group at any time but it can leave the group without enough donated tier for the land it owns.

So tier has everything to do with your group land situation.

[Gabriele Graves]

Liabilities have already been covered in being all the things that groups are charged for.  The most common one is when a parcel is advertised in search, the cost is L$30 and any group member who is in the "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends" role pays a shared of that.  The more land a group owns and the more parcels are in search, the more those liabilities add up.

Dividends are when land is sold that belongs to the group.  The proceeds are shared equally between all group members in this role.  Payouts usually take two days and any remainder that could not be equally divided up stays in the group coffers and will be used for liabilities should there be any.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Gabriele Graves

[Qie Niangao]

7 hours ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

Ahh so tier has nothing to do with group in my case if I'm the only one who has donated the land then I'll be the only one charged.  

Maybe, but the mere act of deeding land to group doesn't in and of itself contribute tier to cover that land. It may, if it's done as @Rabid Cheetah recommended above, with the option "Owner makes contribution with deed" enabled at the time of deeding. The alternative is to pre-donate sufficient tier to the group. (That's particularly useful if the group is accepting land from somebody who wants to free up their tier for other uses.)

I think some screenshots might help.

See the "Owner Makes Contribution With Deed" option? If that wasn't checked when the land was deeded, some other contribution gave the group enough "land credits" (aka "tier") to cover the land area of the deeded parcel. (My concern would be that you made that "other contribution" while still owning the land as an individual, thus increasing your account's total land in use for the month, for which you'll pay an increased fee on your monthly billing date.)

Below are two relevant tabs from the Group Information dialog (Ctrl-Shift-G, select a group, and choose View Info):

   

This is where group members can contribute tier without contributing land.

Note that "Total contribution" matches "Land in use" so the group has no "Land available" it could add. No point wasting tier contribution if the group isn't using it! And avoid letting "Land available" drop below zero for too long, which can happen if some tier-contributing member leaves the group or withdraws tier.

Also note that "Your contribution" is pretty close to my "max" -- meaning that I don't have a lot of individual tier I haven't used anywhere. (If "max" is much larger than "Your contribution" it may be that mistake: you first donated tier to the group instead of making "contribution with deed" and now after deeding you also still have more tier available from when the land was individually owned.)

Finally, note that "Total contribution" is about 110% of "Your contribution" (even though I'm the only contributor for this group). That's the 10% "group tier bonus" effect. If you owned a parcel individually and then deeded it to group, somewhere there should be a few square meters of such "bonus" sloshing around that you could use for something else.

This is where you can see all the group members who contributed tier, whether they donated land or not.

(As noted earlier, once deeded to group, land really is owned by the group and all former ownership is forgotten. It's now up to which group members have which abilities, to determine who can sell the land, etc.)

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

In the end whoever initially bought the land pays the tier correct?   Even if they deed their land to a group they are still responsible for paying the tier until the land is sold?  Maybe you guys keep answering this question and for some reason it's not sinking in (kind of like when someone tried to teach me greedy), I'm sorry if thats the case.  In my group the only role which has the  "Pay group liabilities and receive group dividends" role are the owners.  I have thought of having all the owners take an Officer role and leave a "accountant alt" as the owner just so I can control who has to pay for Search fees.

[Gabriele Graves]

12 hours ago, SeeAirAhh Josephina said:

In the end whoever initially bought the land pays the tier correct?

Whoever bought the land initially must have paid for tier to cover it but it doesn't have to stay that way.

Premium members get a tier level of 1024sqm with their subscription.  That is included in the price of Premium.  If you more tier to donate a group (for example) then you can move up to a new tier level and you pay for that every month as extra.

Now consider this.  If you want to discontinue Premium you have to remove your donation(s) from the group before it will allow you to do that.  If you do that, your group now has a tier donation deficit now for the land it still owns.  Let's say that you ask your friend Joe Bloggs to donate enough of their tier into the group to cover the land it holds, he agrees and now the land being covered by his tier donation from his Premium subscription.

At this point, the land you bought, initially covered with your tier donation(s) and deeded to the group is no longer being covered the tier you are paying for.

If your friend's tier is covering the land in the original group and you have removed your tier, you are now free to use that tier for some new land or to donate it to another group that needs its land holdings covered.  That is assuming you don't go back to Basic.  If you do go back to Basic then you have no tier to be concerned about and aren't paying for any.

If you simply remove your tier from the group and do nothing else, you are still paying for your Premium, which includes the 1024sqm tier level and any extra tier level you may have subscribed to.  You only stop paying for extra tier when you move to the 1024sqm tier level included with your Premium subscription.  You only stop paying for tier completely by discontinuing your Premium subscription.

[SeeAirAhh Josephina]

I've finally found the answer to my original question; it says here http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Groups_and_Land - "The land tier comes out of the donor's account. The donor still pays for the donated land tier."  So I am still responsible for tier on the land regardless of whether it's owned by me or my group.