Land use fees for group land

[Winterharte]

Why am I paying land use fees on group land when I have donated more than I am actually using?   The group members have donated a total of 6144 sq meters and I am only using 4096.  I am paying the full fee of $22 a month for the 4096.  I don't understand.

[Lindal Kidd]

Your land use fees depend on how much Mainland you hold (more precisely, on the maximum amount you held at any point in the billing cycle*).

That number is made up of square meters that come from any or all of these places:

• A Linden Home, if you own one. Either 512 or 1024 sq. m.
• Mainland you hold in your own name.
• Any tier that you have donated to groups. You can see this, and adjust it, in the group's "Land and $" tab.  "Your Contribution" is the key number here. Note that you may donate tier to more than one group. Check to see if maybe you made a donation to another group long ago and forgot about it.

Total up all these sources, then subtract the 1024 that represents your Premium land tier benefit, to find how many square meters you're paying for, then consult the tier table to see in which tier you fall.

*This can sneak up and bite you. For example, if you own some Mainland and plan to make it group owned, if you contribute the tier to the group first, and then deed the land to the group, you have effectively owned twice as many square meters for the few seconds between your donation and the transfer. Congratulations, you're going to pay a higher fee this month. Deed first, donate after, or use the "owner makes contribution with deed" option.

Edited July 2, 2022 by Lindal Kidd

[LittleMe Jewell]

9 hours ago, Winterharte said:

Why am I paying land use fees on group land when I have donated more than I am actually using?   The group members have donated a total of 6144 sq meters and I am only using 4096.  I am paying the full fee of $22 a month for the 4096.  I don't understand.

Did YOU donate 4096 sqm of TIER to the group that owns the land - or any other group(s)?  If so, that is why you are paying.  The amount you pay is based on the amount of land that you directly own or the amount of tier that you donate to groups.

Edited July 3, 2022 by LittleMe Jewell

[Lucia Nightfire]

The amount you pay is the amount of tier you are allocating to your account. It doesn't matter if it is being consumed by land ownership or donation to a group.

If your group's land use is covered by other members' donated tier, you can simply "tier down" on the bottom of your account's Land Use Fees page by selecting a lower bracket and saving changes.

[diamond Marchant]

12 hours ago, Winterharte said:

Why am I paying land use fees on group land when I have donated more than I am actually using?   The group members have donated a total of 6144 sq meters and I am only using 4096.  I am paying the full fee of $22 a month for the 4096.  I don't understand.

I feel your pain. Figuring out how to pay the recurring costs of mainland is not simple . My Parable of the Potato Patch satirizes this.

Perhaps you can do what Lucia suggest and reduce your land use fees.

The general rule for tier (for which I use a spreadsheet) is  [sum of donated tier] times 1.1 equals [amount of group owned land]

The 1.1 is the "group bonus". Donated tier comes from the included tier you get from Premium or Premium Plus membership AND additional land use fees.

The hard part is that you can only purchase tier in increasingly larger units... 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, and 16384.  This create a "tier packing" problem, which is that sometimes you only need a little bit more tier but you are forced into owning the next bigger size... which is more than you need.

Hopefully, you can reduce your tier from 4096 to 2048, depending on what others donated. If you think this system is whack, I agree.

[Alwin Alcott]

15 hours ago, Winterharte said:

Why am I paying land use fees on group land when I have donated more than I am actually using?   The group members have donated a total of 6144 sq meters and I am only using 4096.  I am paying the full fee of $22 a month for the 4096.  I don't understand.

When your donation is "over"tiered, you can see that in the groupprofile in the form of "land available" it's what you can take back without problems for the landholding. And by that lowering your donation/tier level ( note; in that amount the groupbonus is included, you can take 10% less back)