New Citizens Guide for Buying Land in NFS/CN

[Sudane Erato]

Folks,

This is the proposed new "Buying Land Information Page" (pre Land Management System). May I have comments and corrections? Also, could someone post the URL's for the documents mentioned?

Thanks!

Sudane.....

CITIZENSHIP AND BUYING LAND
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Confederation of Democratic Simulators (CDS) / Second Life
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Neufreistadt
Colonia Nova
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BECOMING A CITIZEN
Becoming a citizen of the CDS means owning at least 128 square meters of land in one or more simulators. In purchasing land, you agree to abide:

by our Constitution,

by the laws that have been passed by the Representative Assembly,

by the judicial decisions made by the Judiciary,

by the CDS "Terms of Service",

and by the Covenants (Rules) that have been passed regarding what you may do and not do with your land.

< can we provide URL links for each of these documents? >

BEFORE DECIDING
Before deciding to buy land and become a citizen, please inspect our website [url:3qkda7ga]http://neufreistadt.info[/url:3qkda7ga], where all these materials can be found. Also, use our website to identify a land parcel which you are interested in buying. Spend time walking in the sims, and talking with other citizens you find here. They'll be happy to talk about life in our community, and to show you around. If you have specific financial questions, or issues but the mechanism of buying land, please IM Sudane Erato, our Treasurer.

REMEMBER
All transactions of money and land in our community are completely between ourselves. Linden Labs is NOT involved. You do NOT need to be a Premium Member of Second Life; Basic Membership is fine. Any disputes which may arise regarding land and citizenship will be addressed entirely within the CDS community.

HOW TO BUY
When you have decided on buying, please IM Rudeen Edo (the Estate Owner, and Sudane's alt) with your specific request. Rudeen will make the arrangements necessary for you to purchase your land. She will set the land to the purchase price indicated on the website, and mark it for purchase only by you. You then buy the land in the normal way, by going to the parcel and clicking "Buy Land" on the "About Land" page. Sudane is always available should you need any assistance.

YOUR EMAIL
If you are a new citizen, please supply Sudane with an email address that you wish to use for your Second Life affairs. In addition to our forum at which you are urgently requested to register [url:3qkda7ga]http://forums.neufreistadt.info[/url:3qkda7ga], email is an important means of communication in the community.

ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT MEANS
If for any reason you cannot or will not pay in Linden$'s, you may use our Paypal account, which can be accessed on the Services/Payment page of the site [url:3qkda7ga]http://neufreistadt.info/id12.html[/url:3qkda7ga]. Please realize that in most cases, use of Paypal will compromise your real life privacy, since Paypal payments are always accompanied by the name in which the account is registered. Please inform Sudane that this will be your means of payment, so that Rudeen can adjust your purchase process.

MONTHLY FEES
As with all land in Second Life, you must not only buy the land, you must pay a monthly fee to keep it. Monthly fees are due on the 21st of the month to which they apply, and you will not necessarily receive a notification to pay your fee. It is very important to check the website every month before paying your fee, since the value of the Linden$ exchange rate changes constantly, meaning that your fee will change too. Please pay Rudeen Edo directly the amount that you owe, and please IM Sudane that you have done so. If you must pay in US$, you may use the Paypal account button on the website.

DIRE CONSEQUENCES
In the unlikely event that you fail to pay your monthly fee by the 21st of the month following the month that it is due, your parcel will be reclaimed by Rudeen, and your citizenship cancelled.

SELLING YOUR LAND
If you wish to no longer hold a given parcel of land, you have two options. (1) You may abandon the land, which will be reclaimed by Rudeen and resold by the community. From the moment at which you abandon, you are no longer responsible for the monthly fee, although no amounts already paid will be refunded. (2) You may sell the land. Please inform Sudane that this is your intention, and she will list your parcel for sale on the website. Until your parcel is sold, you remain responsible for the monthly fee.

FOR FURTHER INFO
Please do not hesitate to contact Sudane Erato, or any other CDS community member, if you have questions or need more information about our exciting community.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

Good work, Sudane This is very useful, and will no doubt help prospective citizens. One small thing:

[quote:lsujyanp]DIRE CONSEQUENCES
In the unlikely event that you fail to pay your monthly fee by the 21st of the month following the month that it is due, your parcel will be reclaimed by Rudeen, and your citizenship cancelled. [/quote:lsujyanp]

You should probably mention the necessary step of obtaning a court order before repossessing land.

Otherwise, I cannot see anything wrong with it. I shall refer people to this guide when they aska bout buying land in future

[Sudane Erato]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":14jpyrve] You should probably mention the necessary step of obtaning a court order before repossessing land. [/quote:14jpyrve]
Hmmmm... I have no problem with this, but, it should be understood that this has never been done before, and therefore, is new.

If this is a new procedure, for a fairly common occurrance (most people simply abandon their land and are never heard from again), I should think it to be of the utmost importance that the procedures for this step be established and the participant parties educated on them.

I am actually rather happy to be able to accept oversight of this significant procedure. But we really must know what is entailed in "obtaining a court order". Surely some evidence must be established, etc etc. It may perhaps be the case that the current systems of land management do not permit sufficient evidence to be presented.

I'd suggest that until such time as all these questions are dealt with, perhaps the best solution is to change the "will" in the sentence in question to "may".

Sudane.....

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Sudane Erato":1iw0n32b][quote="Ashcroft Burnham":1iw0n32b] You should probably mention the necessary step of obtaning a court order before repossessing land. [/quote:1iw0n32b]
Hmmmm... I have no problem with this, but, it should be understood that this has never been done before, and therefore, is new.[/quote:1iw0n32b]

I quite understand: we have only just established our judiciary, after all!

[quote:1iw0n32b]If this is a new procedure, for a fairly common occurrance (most people simply abandon their land and are never heard from again), I should think it to be of the utmost importance that the procedures for this step be established and the participant parties educated on them.[/quote:1iw0n32b]

I quite agree: I am drafting the Code of Procedure at present, and intend (in conjunction with Publius) to organise official education in court procedures. I have taken note that you would like there to be training in this particular respect, and will raise the matter with Publius when we next meet (strictly, legal education is matter for the Chair of the Judiciary Commission, although I am always willing to help out with that side of things).

[quote:1iw0n32b]I am actually rather happy to be able to accept oversight of this significant procedure. But we really must know what is entailed in "obtaining a court order". Surely some evidence must be established, etc etc. It may perhaps be the case that the current systems of land management do not permit sufficient evidence to be presented.[/quote:1iw0n32b]

As you will see when the Code of Procedure is finished, evidence will only be required when the order is formally contested, which, I imagine, if people just abandon their land, would be unlikely. This can be dealt with in the training sessions.

[quote:1iw0n32b]I'd suggest that until such time as all these questions are dealt with, perhaps the best solution is to change the "will" in the sentence in question to "may". [/quote:1iw0n32b]

That may be a very sensible suggestion