Prokofy Neva

If you see land inworld that appears to be abandoned: 1. Click to find the owner or group and its officers, and see if any of them are missing from the People List. That's an indication that they may be gone from SL. 2. If they are still in SL, they may not have payed tier for a long time and the land may be reclaimable. 3. File a ticket with Support indicating the exact coordinates and ask Linden Lab to check whether it is abandoned. Usually Lindens answer within 3-7 days on such abandoning questions, and if they can put it on the auction, they will. 4. Then be sure to keep a hawk eye on the auction, because the Lindens often get the land turned around quickly, i.e. in days and not months. Then you can bid on it if it is of interest, or perhaps buy it later inworld if a land dealer bids and gets it. 5. It's always a good idea to check with all your neighbours to see if any of them are bidding on the auction just to save the land for the neighbourhood, just to make sure you won't be bidding against each other needlessly.

Even one second of usage of land tier over your current level will make you bump up to the next level. That's why you can't make an overage purchase even temporarily, with the intent of fixing it -- the Lindens will not help you on this (you can petition and beg, and sometimes on a first-time newbie mistake, they will fix it as a courtesy one-off offer, but it is not their default.) There is absolutely no reason why you cannot undertier your group temporarily to make the purchase, then purchase it, and then deed it to the group -- if you've done the math. The reality is that there is a window of about 24 hours before you will get messages from LL about needing to add tier to your group. Indeed LL does seize land (the latest land to be added to the group) if you are undertiered. But it is a process where you get a warning first, and there is a window. It is not worth risking more than a few minutes, in my view, but I've seen it go to a day or more when I've accidently had a group under tier. There is no stated rule about this anywhere, it is a discretionary and manual process. But you shouldn't be forced into upping your tier level, or renting tier at much higher prices, merely for a transaction like this IF you have determined that you can add the tier in through the group bonus or other residents helping you. BTW, you can "buy for group" to instantly make use of the group bonus -- again, if the math is working out.