There’s something unhealthy in the land market within Second Life, most notably the private market. A bustling trade in ripping people off, signed, sealed and delivered with the “We don’t get involved in resident to resident disputes” motto.
I’m trying to get my head around why an honest purchaser would fail to ask what happens to existing tenants when they take over an estate. There seems to be a philosophy that the purchaser can’t possibly be in the wrong, yet to me, this is a case of see no evil, hear no evil yadda yadda yadda.
Time and again I see complaints from evicted residents. Sometimes you see counter claims from landlords and yet, underneath it all, people shrug their shoulders and mutter: “There’s nothing you can do about it.” This is fundamentally wrong.
There are generally three guilty parties when a resident is ripped off. Number one, the dodgy seller. The smiling faced landlord who is plotting to take the money and run. No scruples here and this is ingrained in the psyche, LL don’t get involved in resident to resident disputes you see. Why should the dodgy seller worry about anything, he won’t be banned, he won’t have anything to worry about and if the heat really arrives he can trade under his alt and take that to premium membership status.
Number two is the greedy buyer. Hey you can save some bucks buying a second hand island, you can also have no scruples about the disaffected residents, not your problem is it. LL don’t get involved in resident to resident disputes and any heat is going to be aimed at the seller, never mind the fact that you’re aiding and abetting the seller, you’re going to be squeaky clean so come on down if the price is right.
Number three guilty party are LL for facilitating the transfer without insisting that due diligence should take place first. Pay them the $100 transfer fee and Bob’s your uncle. LL don’t have to worry about the disaffected tenants, that’s a problem for the seller really, maybe the buyer but certainly not LL, they don’t get involved in resident to resident disputes you see.
So as all three of them smile at having got something out of the deal, the disaffected residents are met with a wall of shrugged shoulders, shady glances and absolutely no recourse and this really isn’t good enough.
LL can and should do something, the first thing to do is to publish guidelines for estate transfers. LL should publish a covenant like list of do’s and don’ts, including (but not limited to) pointing out that it’s not really acceptable to screw over your fellow residents. This covenant should have a tick box that the buyer and seller both tick before the transfer goes ahead. Now this isn’t holding them to the agreement, but it’s an acknowledgment that they have read the said documents and therefore, if they do screw over fellow residents, one or both of them were party to it.
Buyers, start conducting due diligence. An island is in effect worth, the fee you agree to pay for it, minus any outstanding commitments. If an you agree to buy and island for $1300 and the existing estate owner has outstanding tier and land parcel values of $500, the island is worth $800. The buyer can then decide whether they want to do the decent thing by the existing tenants and pay back or honour the $500 worth of commitments. The seller should not get their hands on this money unless, they themselves settle the outstanding commitments prior to the transfer.
I don’t quite see why this is such a difficult concept for people to grasp, but it’s most definitely a blot on the landscape of SL that residents find themselves homeless and out of pocket due to the fact that they were maybe a little too trusting in their commitment.
LL need to stop sitting back and ignoring this issue, the situation is shameful and a festering sore on their product. Whereas a lot of the focus lately has been on banking and the loss of money there, there is regular loss of money to estate deals and even if LL baulk at the idea of introducing some sort of legislation, the very least they should be doing is putting pressure on people to do the honourable thing, not getting involved, is simply not acceptable.
However there are always two sides to a story, not every “I’ve been ripped off” protest is true, tenants do fail to pay tier, tenants do go missing and tenants do break the rules. However in general, when the deal involves an estate transfer, the pressure should be applied from LL to ensure an honourable deal is done.