Multiple adjacent parcels listed for one price .. enforceable or buyer beware

[Coffee Pancake]

Say there are 4 adjacent parcels of mainland, bay city, horizons, etc etc 

They are all individually set for sale for L$800,000 (!!!)

The land description says - If you buy one. You will be able to buy the others in this "set" for L$0

 

Is this enforceable?

Hypothetically, if I buy one of the parcels. Will @Linden Lab back my claim to owning all of the parcels and transfer ownership to me in the absence of the listed landowner / group?

Will they enforce this even if the other parcel descriptions are changed, or they are sold or flipped multiple times in the time it takes LL to see & respond to my support ticket?

Or is this buyer beware, hope for the best.

[Qie Niangao]

13 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

mainland, bay city, horizons, etc

I can't imagine the Lab would get involved, so I guess it's buyer beware. But it's not necessarily set up as a scam, depending where it's being done. On regular old Mainland, I'd be very suspicious, but in Bay City or the Horizons regions, there's no way to merge adjacent parcels to sell them as one, perhaps to give special treatment to anyone willing to take the whole area. Of course there's also no way to prevent that buyer from selling them off individually anyway, so any deep discount to take them all would just invite flipping.

[Quistess Alpha]

1 hour ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Or is this buyer beware, hope for the best.

Perhaps common sense doesn't need to be elaborated but. . .

In any purchase where you're putting down that much money, you can and should contact the seller. If you make a sincere offer, they'd probably be willing to set all the parcels to sale to you, or work out some other methodology of doing the transaction where you're both happy with the (hopefully lessened after a friendly conversation) risk of the other party flaking.

[BilliJo Aldrin]

If the seller is being honest, why don't they just list each of the 4 parcels for $200,000 L ?

Edited December 27, 2022 by BilliJo Aldrin
changed pronoun to be inclusive and non sexist

[Rowan Amore]

4 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

Say there are 4 adjacent parcels of mainland, bay city, horizons, etc etc 

They are all individually set for sale for L$800,000 (!!!)

The land description says - If you buy one. You will be able to buy the others in this "set" for L$0

 

Is this enforceable?

Hypothetically, if I buy one of the parcels. Will @Linden Lab back my claim to owning all of the parcels and transfer ownership to me in the absence of the listed landowner / group?

Will they enforce this even if the other parcel descriptions are changed, or they are sold or flipped multiple times in the time it takes LL to see & respond to my support ticket?

Or is this buyer beware, hope for the best.

I've seen this on Horizons.  To me, it would make more sense to offer each parcel for 175000 but offer a discount if you want both.  150000 each.  Otherwise, it does seem kind of questionable.  

[Coffee Pancake]

I've seen it everywhere there are high value plots that can't be subdivided or joined, was having a bit of a wander today ....

[Resi Pfeffer]

3 hours ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I've seen it everywhere there are high value plots that can't be subdivided or joined, was having a bit of a wander today ....

Whats the reason for parcels not being able to be joined (unless their borders dont touch each other)?

[BilliJo Aldrin]

10 minutes ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Whats the reason for parcels not being able to be joined (unless their borders dont touch each other)?

Sim restrictions, on some sims you can't join or divide parcels

[xDancingStarx]

I've run into similar issues where it's always the same. Either the buyer has to trust the seller, or the other way around, and there is no way around it. In this case the seller obviously would be exposed to the risk that the buyer only buys one of the parcels for a good price, making use of the discount, even though promising to take all 4. And while I strongly believe that the vast majority of offers are legit, I'd triple check the seller's reputation, before it goes like "oh I'm so sorry, my partner was supposed to set them to sale for you, but he's gotten sick etc I can't do anything now, the money's already gone..."

[Qie Niangao]

I keep trying to figure out a seller's possible motivation for selling all the parcels together. Earlier I'd been assuming that they were trying to manage the future of the land, to keep it together for combined use. Maybe that happens sometimes, although (as I said) there's no preventing the buyer from selling off the pieces separately.

It's possible the seller thinks the land is worth more combined than the sum of the parts. Maybe that's true sometimes? Particularly in these regions where parcels can't be joined?

Or maybe the seller really doesn't want to get stuck still owning just part of the land, and if they can't unload it all at once, would rather keep it all. Not sure why this would ever be true, but maybe?

Anybody know actual circumstances that led sellers to make such offers (assuming they're legit) ?

[Qie Niangao]

6 hours ago, Resi Pfeffer said:

Whats the reason for parcels not being able to be joined (unless their borders dont touch each other)?

(Off topic: On regions where joining parcels is allowed, it's completely possible to join non-adjacent parcels, which can be useful for land one continues to own. It can also be deceptive—or at least confusing—for land that's for sale. It can be tricky to join two non-adjacent parcels that are separated by land owned by another group over which one also has land permissions; in the past I've had to temporarily leave the group owning the intervening parcel in order to get it to work. That's one way to discover that leaving a group immediately removes any tier contribution you made to that group.)

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

24 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I keep trying to figure out a seller's possible motivation for selling all the parcels together. Earlier I'd been assuming that they were trying to manage the future of the land, to keep it together for combined use. Maybe that happens sometimes, although (as I said) there's no preventing the buyer from selling off the pieces separately.

It's possible the seller thinks the land is worth more combined than the sum of the parts. Maybe that's true sometimes? Particularly in these regions where parcels can't be joined?

Or maybe the seller really doesn't want to get stuck still owning just part of the land, and if they can't unload it all at once, would rather keep it all. Not sure why this would ever be true, but maybe?

Anybody know actual circumstances that led sellers to make such offers (assuming they're legit) ?

I know of one in Bay City who does that for esthetic purposes, to keep the area from looking chopped up. They've used the same method elsewhere in Mainland for areas they want to stay looking nice.

Of course, what seems to happen is that the parcels just sit there unsold for ages because most people do not want to buy a huge chunk of land like that. 

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

16 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

(Off topic: On regions where joining parcels is allowed, it's completely possible to join non-adjacent parcels, which can be useful for land one continues to own. It can also be deceptive—or at least confusing—for land that's for sale. It can be tricky to join two non-adjacent parcels that are separated by land owned by another group over which one also has land permissions; in the past I've had to temporarily leave the group owning the intervening parcel in order to get it to work. That's one way to discover that leaving a group immediately removes any tier contribution you made to that group.)

I wanted to put a laugh reaction on that last sentence, but the rest is good info so I refrained. (But...d'oh! lol)

[Coffee Pancake]

I'd really like an official reaction to be honest, this behavior is either ok and LL will help out if it comes to that, or it's really not and should be explicitly prohibited.

It's no trivial matter or resident to resident dispute when considerable amounts of L$ are on the line.

[Quistess Alpha]

57 minutes ago, Coffee Pancake said:

I'd really like an official reaction to be honest

You're free to file a support ticket and tell us how (badly) that goes. . .

[Paul Hexem]

Seems like I'm saying this a lot lately;

Don't forget that in SL, textbook illegal fraud is a resident to resident dispute.

I can't see LL getting involved in this type of situation.

[Katherine Heartsong]

On 12/27/2022 at 3:06 PM, Coffee Pancake said:

L$800,000

Does the math ... US$3,200 (aka C$4,000+). That's a new garage door for me. Hmm, wonder if I can persuade my wife to let me ... umm .. no, never mind.

[Clem Marques]

On 12/28/2022 at 4:43 PM, Qie Niangao said:

I keep trying to figure out a seller's possible motivation for selling all the parcels together. Earlier I'd been assuming that they were trying to manage the future of the land, to keep it together for combined use. Maybe that happens sometimes, although (as I said) there's no preventing the buyer from selling off the pieces separately.

It's possible the seller thinks the land is worth more combined than the sum of the parts. Maybe that's true sometimes? Particularly in these regions where parcels can't be joined?

When it comes to the Horizons regions (where joining parcels is not allowed), it's notably hard to find more than 2 adjacent parcels available for sale.

Two parcels next to each other are already quite rare, 4 together is even rarer.

On average, single parcels sell for L$100,000 - L$ 150,000 nowadays. They are charging a higher amount for the set of 4 parcels (L$800,000 so L$200,000 per parcel) due to the fact that it's rare for anyone to have that, and even though that is ridiculously expensive, someone might be interested in the cluster of parcels. They're worth way more in a group than individually, especially if they line up to form a perfect square, since some Horizons parcels that are next to each other are sort of misaligned. That rarity is the reason why they always charge more instead of offering a discount to someone buying several parcels at once.

The cluster of 4 parcels in one of those regions also means that the buyer (sometimes) ends up with a 4x protected, double prim big piece of land, which is downright amazing.

 An example of that in the Horizons Obern region. 4x Protected, current asking price: L$590,000

If they sold 1 of the 4 parcels, they would all lose part of their value as a set. Hence why sellers usually try to use that "Buy 1 get the others" tactic. However, that can be very risky for everyone involved, so the buyer should only consider a purchase like that if the seller is very reputable/well-known (and if they have a crazy amount of money to spend on land, of course 🤣)

Edited December 13, 2023 by Clem Marques

[animats]

If the seller is willing to disclose their identity, you can contract with them outside SL. That's enforceable in court.

[Jennifer Boyle]

On 12/13/2023 at 12:34 PM, animats said:

If the seller is willing to disclose their identity, you can contract with them outside SL. That's enforceable in court.

After thinking about this, I wonder if a contract entered into by avatars within SL might be enforceable in court. If negotiated in IMs, there would be a written record which is maintained by LL for some time. IANAL,  but I wouldn't think that the parties using aliases would invalidate the contract. Couldn't an injured party file suit against "John Doe" pending identification of the defendant, subpoena identification and contact information as well as IM logs from LL/Tilia, serve the defendant, and proceed with the suit?

I also had the thought that we need access to some kind of escrow system in SL, letting either LL-vetted-and-licensed users serve as escrow agants or LL itself providing the service.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Jennifer Boyle

[animats]

14 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

After thinking about this, I wonder if a contract entered into by avatars within SL might be enforceable in court.

That's a good question for a lawyer. Many eBay sellers are anonymous, and there are commerce web sites where the ownership is not clearly identified. Those are sued routinely. Look up "how to sue a web site".

[BilliJo Aldrin]

On 12/13/2023 at 10:40 AM, Clem Marques said:

When it comes to the Horizons regions (where joining parcels is not allowed), it's notably hard to find more than 2 adjacent parcels available for sale.

Two parcels next to each other are already quite rare, 4 together is even rarer.

On average, single parcels sell for L$100,000 - L$ 150,000 nowadays. They are charging a higher amount for the set of 4 parcels (L$800,000 so L$200,000 per parcel) due to the fact that it's rare for anyone to have that, and even though that is ridiculously expensive, someone might be interested in the cluster of parcels. They're worth way more in a group than individually, especially if they line up to form a perfect square, since some Horizons parcels that are next to each other are sort of misaligned. That rarity is the reason why they always charge more instead of offering a discount to someone buying several parcels at once.

The cluster of 4 parcels in one of those regions also means that the buyer (sometimes) ends up with a 4x protected, double prim big piece of land, which is downright amazing.

 An example of that in the Horizons Obern region. 4x Protected, current asking price: L$590,000

If they sold 1 of the 4 parcels, they would all lose part of their value as a set. Hence why sellers usually try to use that "Buy 1 get the others" tactic. However, that can be very risky for everyone involved, so the buyer should only consider a purchase like that if the seller is very reputable/well-known (and if they have a crazy amount of money to spend on land, of course 🤣)

No parcel is worth that much money.

Horizons is a sh*t hole anyway.  I wouldn’t live there if they were giving land away. 

😂

[Rowan Amore]

2 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

After thinking about this, I wonder if a contract entered into by avatars within SL might be enforceable in court. If negotiated in IMs, there would be a written record which is maintained by LL for some time. IANAL,  butI wouldn't think that the parties using aliases would invalidate the contract. Couldn't an injured party file suit against "John Doe" pending identification of the defendant, subpoena identification and contact information as well as IM logs from LL/Tilia, serve the defendant, and proceed with the suit?

I also had the thought that we need access to some kind of escrow system in SL, letting either LL-vetted-and-licensed users serve as escrow agants or LL itself providing the service.

If one party is under 18 they can void that contract without any reason since and you'd have no recourse.  If you asked for proof of age, you'd then possibly know someone's RL name and could possibly take them to court if 18 or over.