Renter Rights

[SacysKeebler]

We have rented 2 sky boxes in the last year.  We have always paid in advance; we've never been late. Each of them has vanished with no warning and left us with nothing.  What can we do? We'd already paid the months rent.  How do we insure this doesn't. happen in the future?

[Mowri Panache]

I always recommend paying 1 week at a time just in case the land owner abandons SL or sells the land. They SHOULD give you warning of either but should and will are two different things. 

[Orwar]

   Could be various reasons for that, the landlord might not have paid their tier due to RL issues - or they just abandoned it. Either way, first course of action would be to contact the landlord and see what's up. If they're unresponsive, it might be in order to file an AR, though I doubt LL will force a refund.

[KjartanEno]

If the person you rented from won't respond to you, there isn't anything you can do about the loss. Was payment made through Caspervend? A lot of landowners use Caspervend boxes which will provide the renter information about payment, prims, and time left on the rental. Don't rent from someone who is themselves renting from a landowner unless you already trust them.

[Bree Giffen]

Pay once a week. It's a hassle but if the owner disappears you are only out for one week. It also works if the problem is on your end and you need to abandon the place. Only out one week at the most. You might want to check if the landlord has a lot of rentals that are not being rented out. They could be losing money and might abandon the land.

[Chic Aeon]

Also if you are in doubt, don't put down no copy items and make back ups of your furnishing layout.  This happens more than we would expect. Never to me happily. Also the more you pay for your plot and house the less likely it is it will disappear. So those 50 a week spots are often folks that are hurting for linden dollars and trying to make a bit on the side. Best to go with a large land owner or an estate (several sims) as well as a long history in the rental business.  

 

I can't tell you how many times I went to look at land to rent to find the ad sent me to land that had either been abandoned or reclaimed by LL -- so in "maintenance" :D. 

[RunawayBunny]

About topic.

I don't think renters have any kind of right of you are renting from SL Resident. They can take your money and kick you out. You might file AR but I don't expect any action.

For more info check topic "The landlord always has the final say":

LL should directly provide rental system. Land / Parcel, they already providing housing system with premium but obtaining land from LL not easy.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 hour ago, RunawayBunny said:

obtaining land from LL not easy.

getting LL land is as easy as a few clicks. Only need to be premium.
Only if you want a very specific LH it can take some time.
 

1 hour ago, RunawayBunny said:

LL should directly provide rental system. Land / Parcel

they have .. the fee for using it is called Premium.

[Marianne Little]

Yes, when you rent from another resident, you have no rights, nothing, nada, zero, zilch.

[RunawayBunny]

14 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

getting LL land is as easy as a few clicks. Only need to be premium.

Easy? Not sure..

https://secondlife.com/land/privatepricing.php

Homestead Regions have lower performance than Full Regions and are intended for low-density rentals, quiet residential or light commercial use. Only available to Residents who own at least one Full Region.

Basically you have to buy Full Region (which you might or might not need) in order to get Homestead and pay for both. Its like selling distillery someone who trying buy a vodka. :3

Correct me if there is a workaround.

[Alwin Alcott]

3 minutes ago, RunawayBunny said:

Basically you have to buy Full Region (which you might or might not need) in order to get Homestead and pay for both. Its like selling distillery someone who trying buy a vodka. :3

Correct me if there is a workaround.

how did you get the idea it's needed to buy private regions to get land?
The biggest LL landmass is Mainland. Thát is comparable to renting land for skyboxes as this topic is about.
and btw: All landowning in SL is a rental system, it's just the terms change when having LL as landlord or a sublet by a resident.
 

[RunawayBunny]

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

how did you get the idea it's needed to buy private regions to get land?

I got the idea from LL.

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

The biggest LL landmass is Mainland.

I have no idea how mainland works tbh. I never rented anything on mainland, it is practically a junkyard IMO.

5 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

and btw: All landowning in SL is a rental system, it's just the terms change when having LL as landlord or a sublet by a resident.

Yep this is why LL getting wrong idea.. They have to provide land / parcel / housing system them self instead of letting estate owners play mini monopoly role play game.

Getting away "The landlord always has the final say" thing sounds silly. LL should be providing this service. But who knows perhaps they can remove third party estate rental thing like they did L$ sellers. It is just a suggestion.

[Alwin Alcott]

1 minute ago, RunawayBunny said:

LL should be providing this service.

they have a even worse system... if you use more than the tier that is included in the premium you pay only in full months... even when using it for one single day.

It's the users that keep the third party rental business in place, it's no LL idea.
The user doesn't need premium for it, and has land that he can keep or switch any moment, and pay in a more flexible way. It's not only or all negative for the renter.

[Marianne Little]

Yes, I rent in Mainland. The land can disappear from me, but so is it every place. It is cheaper than having a Premium and pay rent to LL. Or have 8 premiums. I rent one plot to the north of this one too.

Returned items may be returned to their original folder in your inventory, but are most often ending up as a coalesced object in the "Lost and found" folder. Or several ones.

I abandon land or return all objects on it myself when I am in a hurry to change location. I rez the whole lump of objects in a big sandbox. In Firestorm, I can select only copyable items, so I do it and delete them. I then pick up no-copy ones as gachas. I think I never lost stuff this way.

Be lucky or not in Mainland... it is a land subforum where people share suggestions for not ugly Mainland communities. I got a tip there about this land I am renting:

 

It is 2 sides where I look at only water, to the South and West. I put in all landscaping details to get is just as I wanted. Besides, the Original Poster said they had skyboxes. No need to look at the other neighbors around on Mainland.

[Cinos Field]

Renters have no rights on SL, like others have said, which is why most SL landlords act like this. Why not, after all, when they face no consequences? I always recommend against renting, since it's not like it's cheap either.

Assuming you get the lowest stipend, that's 300 * 52 = 15600 lindens per year. or 65 dollars. So the real cost of Premium is actually 99 - 65 = 34 per year, equaling ~8200 lindens.

Any rental you find would then have to be ~157 lindens or less per week, per 1024 plot, to be cheaper than premium. I've never, ever seen rentals that cheap.

 

 

 

[Jax Leeder]

You should consider going premium and buying yourself (via the land auctions) 1024sq m of land - you can get some real cheap deals and it's ideal if you want a skybox because it does not matter what garbage is at ground level.

Considering the premium fee includes giving you 300L$ a week it's pretty hard to find any rental that comes close.

That and you have total control over your land - no landlord. You can grant access as you see fit.

[RunawayBunny]

59 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

they have a even worse system... if you use more than the tier that is included in the premium you pay only in full months... even when using it for one single day.

I agree their current system expensive and not suitable for majority of residents.

59 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

It's the users that keep the third party rental business in place, it's no LL idea.

Yes, marketplace not LL's idea But they realized it is necessary to have it for a proper service and income.

They should be doing same thing for land rentals because it is necessary if you want serve costumers (residents) proper way and avoid this kind of topic(s) all together.

Edited April 5, 2021 by RunawayBunny

[Alwin Alcott]

17 minutes ago, RunawayBunny said:

 

Yes, marketplace not LL's idea But they realized it is necessary to have it for a proper service and income.

 

thats indeed right... MP only got the status it has now by taking over the lot better 3rd party version run by others.

 

 

19 minutes ago, RunawayBunny said:

 because it is necessary if you want serve costumers (residents) proper way and avoid this kind of topic(s) all together.

no it won't make it better. Prices will raise like a rocket .. LL doesn't have the support employees for it, and hiring them will simply raise all fees. All those third party businesses take the majority of customer care out of LL hands. Bit the same as the forums/answers section (although that got also less after the last forum updates some time ago, the answers got also more a discussion instead of only answers.)
LL provides the platform.. lot of the inworld things are for the residents.
I think it this is also one of the reasons SL cán be open for non premiums. If they have to regulate everything SL will be a different product that also has to get a more regulated paying userbase.

[Mollymews]

7 hours ago, SacysKeebler said:

We have rented 2 sky boxes in the last year.  We have always paid in advance; we've never been late. Each of them has vanished with no warning and left us with nothing.  What can we do? We'd already paid the months rent.  How do we insure this doesn't. happen in the future?

pretty much, rent from a person who has been in the SL rentals business for a long time. Start with landlords like AnsheX and work your way down

edit add: is less costly in terms of disappearance than it is starting from the bottom and working your up

Edited April 5, 2021 by Mollymews

[Prokofy Neva]

5 hours ago, RunawayBunny said:

About topic.

I don't think renters have any kind of right of you are renting from SL Resident. They can take your money and kick you out. You might file AR but I don't expect any action.

For more info check topic "The landlord always has the final say":

LL should directly provide rental system. Land / Parcel, they already providing housing system with premium but obtaining land from LL not easy.

The problem with your idea is that it creates an enormous workload of governance, trying to get tenants to pay on time, trying to get them to remove violations of the TOS or your own rules, e.g. viewblockers, trying to get them to remove excess prims beyond their limit.

The Lindens have not wanted to take this on and if anything have encouraged people to make groups and create their own communities by giving a 10% bonus on group land. 

The Lindens have their managed area called Linden Homes, if you want to pay $11.99/month for that and live with their house choices and prim limits -- and even with this they still have a huge workload. But because there are built-in limits, they can justify it. There are many nice choices there if you want to try that.

The Mainland is only a dump if you go to the places that are dumps. There are many areas where rental agencies like mine are keeping the sims nice, and have rules and ethics so that your situation doesn't happen.

And we have neighbours who are also rental agencies or end users who also are interested in protecting the view. I have been in business now for 16 years, and I have had tenants that long. Nothing is for certain, especially given COVID. But I also have refunds on my rental boxes, and I encourage people not to pay too far ahead in case something happens -- more often it's on their end, they want to cancel an account, or get locked out of an account or whatever, then the refund won't work.

On Mainland, you would pay half the premium or less $5.00 or less for the same land and prims -- and likely more prims and more choice.

Another option is you could buy your own land.

There is absolutely nothing you can do in your situation because LL refuses to take on resident-to-resident disputes. And they won't let you publicize names on the forums for fear of legal action and because people also publish false information to settle scores.

 

 

[Prokofy Neva]

2 hours ago, Jax Leeder said:

You should consider going premium and buying yourself (via the land auctions) 1024sq m of land - you can get some real cheap deals and it's ideal if you want a skybox because it does not matter what garbage is at ground level.

Considering the premium fee includes giving you 300L$ a week it's pretty hard to find any rental that comes close.

That and you have total control over your land - no landlord. You can grant access as you see fit.

That's not true.

If you annualize your account and pay $99 per year, the premium stipend of $300 wk/$1200/mo only pays out $57.60 at the rate of 1000 Lindens/$4.00 currently available.

So now you have $41.40 and trust me, you can still find rentals with the same amount of land and prims for that amount, which would be US $3.45 per month. I know because I have them. I have $250L/350 prims for skyboxes or land, or even lower, $240.  So with 10% discount for 4 weeks, that's US $3.60 per month or even $3.45. And It's not just my budget rentals -- other agencies have the same or slightly more. Look in the ads on the forums. Renting on the mainland is simply a lot cheaper than the premium account or private islands. 

And you have the flexibility. When you refund from a Mainland rental, assuming they have refunds as I do, you get your money back instantly. Not so with the premium, which closes your account but doesn't give you a pro-rated refund. Many islands have no refunds.

With the powers given you in the group, you can do everything except sell the land, return group-set prims and undeed deeded items. These last two restrictions are to prevent griefing.

The advantage of renting on an island is that you may get to have your own group. But you will pay a lot more.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Prokofy Neva

[Dragon Mommy]

If LL would allow me to own a homestead right through them I'd happily do that rather than rent. That's the biggest barrier to me for sure that requires me to use a landlord. 

[SacysKeebler]

You all have given me so much the think about.  Thank you so much for the time you took to answer.  I'm not sure what we will do at this point but now now I have info to work from!

 

Keebs