Friday Reflections…

It’s been a heck of a week!

The election here in the US on Tuesday…  I can honestly say it’s the first time in I can’t even remember how long that I’m actually excited to see how the next 4 years will play out.  I’m quite proud of this country this week.

We sat around the Crown talking about the election Tuesday and discussing the returns.  This may not sound unusual to some people, sitting around a bar talking election results.  Consider for a moment though, a good  portion of the crowd sitting there were brits.  They didn’t vote and yet were interested enough in the election to stay up well past 2-3am to see the results.  I could go into any number of reasons why they were so interested… let’s just leave it at YAY. 😉

Guy Fawkes was Wednesday… In true Crown and Pearl fashion the sky was lit up.  There are a bunch of pics up on peoples flickr streams.  I took about 100 myself and will post a few when I get some time.  Thank you Prad for the fireworks.  It was a good time for everyone. 🙂

I’m tired just thinking about it all.  Good thing it’s Friday and the weekend right around the corner!

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Owning Land – Islands/Estates

Per the request of my lovely friend Ahuva , this is the second in the series of land ownership – island/estates.

Ok, so you want to own land but you aren’t a premium member and you’ve heard the horror stories about mainland and want to avoid it.  You start looking to the islands/estates.

First, a little bit of terminology.  An island is also referred to as a region or sim.  All are valid descriptions.  Each island is it’s own region and each region is a sim.  For purposes of this post, we’ll use island.  Now, estate refers to the group of islands owned by own person.  In my case, Angel Square Estate incorporates Angel Square(the island), BaileysReach(an island) and Crown and Pearl(an island).  There are much larger estates than mine and I’m sure some smaller.  So, you have the estate, then the islands within the estate.  With me so far?  Ok moving along. 🙂

Estate owners can(and most do) have a covenant that lists the *rules* for living on their islands.  The theme(snow, tropical, commercial, residential etc), the types of builds allowed, how payments are made, how much tier is per month, who to contact if there is a  problem and various other items that are important to them.  It’s important to read this. For instance, most covenants say that there are no refunds on tier and that if you don’t pay on time or notify the owner your land can be reclaimed.  So, read the covenant.  All of it.

Estate land can be rented or purchased.  Again, depends on the owner.  Some perfer to rent some to sell.  In either case you will pay them a monthly tier.  Check the covenant for how you pay whether it’s paypal or lindens or some other method.  So, your paying the owner a fee to use the land.  Think of it as a mortgage payment or rental payment. 

Ok so you want to buy the land.  What do you get for this?  In most cases you get full rights to do whatever you want, within the boundaries of the covenant.  This means building, terraforming, most security measures etc.  Stay within the covenant and your all set.  Your name will be listed as the owner of the land and you are free to sell it should you wish to move.  Now if you rent the land, you will not get all of those rights in most cases.  Some owners will give them, most don’t.  I do.

Now you’ve bought or rented the land, moved in, been paying tier for a couple of months and you start to get a bad feeling.  I will say this now, there are unethical estate owners and ethical ones.  Just as in RL.  Yes, the estate owner can kick everyone off the island, return your stuff and not say a word, no warning, nothing.  Chances are, they don’t have to refund any tier either.  Stinks huh.  Yep, it does.  That’s why I always suggest getting recommendations from friends about going to an estate. 

The estate owner can really do whatever they want and the residents have little recourse.  That’s the worst case and I don’t hear about it happening often.  Most of us(estate owners) are good people and will go out of our way for our residents.  Just talk to us.  Now keep in mind, we still have to pay tier to the Lindens so we’ll be as accomodating as possible.

So, that’s the story with estate/island land.  Need clarification or more info then IM me in world or leave a comment here.  I’ll be happy to help.  Oh and I do have some land available on Angel Square to buy or rent if anyone is interested?  😉

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