somebody please explain ?

[74Theo74]

when i look at the tiers for land ownership on mainland...it says if you own a full sim its $195usd yet when i was looking at the promotion it says you pay $295 per month ??

[Peggy Paperdoll]

I don't know where you read that.  The tier on a full sim has been $295 per month for 2 or 3 years now.  The old tier rate was $195 per month and LL "grand fathered" that rate to owners of sims that were purchased at that tier rate.  Once the owner sells or relinquishes his/her sim the grand fathered rate goes away......and the new owner will pay the current tier rate of $295 per month.

[Claireschen Hesten]

$195 is for a full mainland sim $295 is for a private sim

[Amethyst Jetaime]

A sim on the mainland IS 195US a month.  However you do not get estate rights.  You buy the land only and the lindens still own the estate. 

Private islands are 295US a month with full estate rights.  If you buy a sim on the secondary market, even if its grandfathered, starting this year the tier goes to the current level of 295US.  However if the sim stays with the owner and they owned it when it was grandfathered they still pay the 195US a month.

[74Theo74]

ahhh yeh that makes sense to me....can somebody explain "granfathered" to me...cheers

[Qie Niangao]

"Grandfathered" there refers to the monthly amount charged the Estate owner for certain sims that were owned before those rates changed.  There have been different monthly fees, historically, and some of those earlier fees are retained ("grandfathered in").  There also have been changes in the rules of when grandfathered fees apply, and there's never been any promise that they'll last forever.

Edit:  I meant to add that Amethyst is technically correct that the Lindens "still own the estate" on Mainland, but that's mostly an artifact of how Estates were implemented on the grid; it's probably easier to just think of Mainland as having no Estate owner because Lindens won't perform on Mainland anything like what Estate managers do, with very rare exceptions.

Basically, on the Mainland, you're on your own as a parcel owner, and pay your fees directly to the Lab like Estate owners do.  You have less power than an Estate owner, even if you own a whole Mainland sim, so the fees at that tier of Mainland ownership are lower than for owning a full Estate sim.

Because the grandfathered rates only apply to the original Estate owner, the only way for anybody else to get in on that lower rate is to lease from that Estate owner.  That puts the leasee at some risk, of course, as with any Estate tenant, that the Estate could go out of business or the owner could just kick the tenant off the land with no recourse.  Doesn't happen every day or anything, but it's the main disadvantage of leasing from an Estate; at the full sim level, you could just as well deal directly with LL, owning a one-sim Estate yourself -- except that you can't get that grandfathered monthly fee discount. So that's why people still lease full sims from Estates.

[Melita Magic]

For a while, grandfathered rates transfered, but that ended months ago. 

Now, all private island estate sims are $295 tier a month.

Mainland full region sims are $195 a month.

1.5 mainland regions are $292 a month.