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Important rules for land owners
> The Covenant
> The fine print
> The themes
The owner of a parcel has certain rights - usually more rights than anybody else who happens to be on the parcel. Only the owner can set his home spot on the parcel, for example and only the owner can build there ("rez prims").
If you want to share these rights with someone else, the land must be owned by a group and everyone, with whom you want to share these rights, must be a member of this group (you, as the founder of the group, can invite them into the group).
The Second Life Knowledge Base contains a lot of valuable information about groups, for example:
How do I create my own group?
How do I invite someone to a group I'm in?
How to create and join a group - Video Tutorial?
But please note, that a few description in the Knowledge Base are not applicable to land you own on THE OTHERLAND ESTATE.
Deeding land (assigning ownership) to a group, for example, works differently. See below.
To resell land on THE OTHERLAND ESTATE you need the cooperation of an Estate Manager (their names can always be found here). It is impossible with our estate settings to set the land for sale directly (because we have to know about every change of ownership beforehand).
You have 3 options for reselling your land:
(1) We can reclaim your land and set it for sale at your desired price with the promise that the proceeeds will go to your account. You have to trust us, so to speak and it might be a few hours or even a day before you see the money after a sale.
The new owner HAS TO accept our Covenant and has set up a subscription before we will sign over the land. Should we find that the buyer will not set up a subscription or can't live with the Covenant, the deal will be reversed - with no money going to you.
(2) You can find a buyer yourself and arrange payments with him/her inworld or through PayPal. The new owner HAS TO accept our Covenant, though, and set up a subscription before we will sign over the land.
(3) You can sell back the land to us. We will usually pay 75% of the current list price ... so you might get a better price trying it yourself. But this options makes sure, that no matter how quickly you want to leave or how urgent you need the money, there is always a solution around.
And it is always a good idea, to ask around in the neighborhood? We have many deals where the parcels are sold between neighbors directly ...
We do not allow changes to the cuts of the parcels on the sims comprising THE OTHERLAND ARCHIPELAGO. This would confuse our land management database.
There is rarely a pressing need to do so, on the other hand. It is a common misunderstanding, that parcels need to be combined to use free prim capacities in another parcel. This is not the case.
Second Life automatically pools all the prim capacities of all the parcels of the same owner in one sim. That means that you can an arbitrary number of prims on any of your parcels - as log as the total number of prims on all the parcels you own on the same sim.
An example: if you or your group owns two parcels, one of 16sqm and one of 8192 sqm in the same sim: you can place more than 1875 prims on the 16sqm parcel
If you need more prims on your land and there is still unsold land available in the same sim, you can buy additional land - which also raises your prim allowance on your current land. Please ask an Estate Manager if you need more prims. Sometimes we reserve land for this purpose on our sims and do not put this land for sale officially. We cn not guarantee, that this is possible/available, though.
It is technically impossible to "buy prims" in Second Life. Some of our competitors might give you the impression that they "sell you more prims". What is happening, in fact, is always an addition to your land holdings. In Second Life, the prims capacity available to you is always directly connected to the amount of land you (or group) own in one sim.
If you have a problem with another Otherlander, especially, when this person behave in a way that you consider inappropriate for your neigborhood, it is usually best, to discuss this politely with the person in question.
It you think that this person has violated The Otherland Covenant, you might want to inform us about the fact. But even in this case it is often helpful - because less 'official' - to discuss this among you first.
It you think, that another person has violated the Second Life ToS or the Community Standards, it is best to directly file a
Please note, that we are not party to and can not act as a kind of arbiter in a neighborly dispute.
All of the land on THE OTHERLAND ARCHIPELAGO is "zoned", meaning that there is a set of rules to which everyone who wants to become a resident of OTHERLAND has to agree. These rules are called "The Covenant". Please check The Otherland Covenant if you are uncertain about what you can build on your land.
The building rules in the Covenant regulate the size and position of buildings - not there style. Use your own good taste regarding the style. Rule of thumb is: Build your house such that it could fit (with a grain of salt) into a residential area in RL.
A few regions are themed in addition, limiting the style of buildings. Check here for a list of available themes and their descriptions.
Land in Second Life can either be owned by a single avatar or by a group. The advantage of group owned land is that other avatars (which are members of the land owning group) can set their home position on the land and might get the right to place prims ('rez' objects) on this land, too. More info in this topic can be found in The Second Life Knowledge Base.
An 'Officer' in a land owning group usually has the same rights as the original land owner (That can be changed in the group settings, though. See The Second Life Knowledge Base, also).
The process of changing ownership between an avatar and a group is sometimes called "deeding".
On THE OTHERLAND ESTATE deeding can only be done by an Estate Manager (as we have to keep track of land ownership). So, if you want to deed the land that you own to a group (or change the land-owning group), please contact an Estate Manager.
Every Otherlander has the right to swap the land she or he owns with another parcel of the same size and prim allowance anywhere else on Otherland. If you see another parcel, which you like better, please contact an Estate Manager and tell her so.
Please note, that, if the new land, that you want to own has the same (or an higher) amount of monthly payments due, the swap will be done at no cost to you. (You have to pay for the additional land of course and setup a new subscription, if your new land is larger.) If you are downgrading, we will buy back your old land at the going rate (currently 75% of list price) and subtract that amount from the list price of the new land.
Additionally, please note, that land swapping is limited to two swaps within a 12 month period per resident. If you want to do a third swap, we will have to charge you 25% of the list price of the new land.
