What is abandoned land?

Abandoned land is a mainland parcel that has been returned to Linden Lab by the previous owner.

How to abandon land

1. Open the World menu and select About Land. The About Land window opens.
2. In the General tab of the About Land window, click Abandon Land.
3. Review the confirmation and click Ok.

How to tell if land is abandoned

Abandoned land is owned by Governor Linden and contains the term "Abandoned Land" in the parcel name.  The parcel description often includes the name of the previous owner.

Land that is owned by another Resident is not abandoned, even if it appears to be unused.

What happens to abandoned land

When a mainland parcel is abandoned, the ownership of the parcel changes to Governor Linden.  There is no Linden dollar (L$) grant related to abandoned land.  Once abandoned, the parcel settings are amended to reflect the abandoned status and auto-return settings are enabled after one week.

I abandoned my land by mistake!

You should never expect to be able to reclaim abandoned land.  Please use care to make sure that any abandonment action is intentional.  However, if you do make a mistake, please submit a support case as soon as possible.  Include the parcel location and explain that you would like to reclaim a parcel you abandoned by mistake.  We can attempt to make a one-time courtesy effort to recover the land for you.

How to request purchase of abandoned land

To request the sale of abandoned land, submit a support case of the type Land > Parcel Issues and provide the details of your request. In many cases, we can assist by making a larger or smaller sized parcel available rather than the actual parcel that has been requested. If you require a different size parcel than what is currently available, please request the desired size (in square meters) and provide a SLurl to the parcel's location.

We will attempt to assist with a direct sale to the Resident who has made the request, so please submit a ticket as soon as you are aware of the abandoned location. We attempt to give priority to those who already have land in the region, so please let us know if the request is for neighboring or additional land within the same region. We will try to assist with a direct sale of the abandoned land at a the price of L$1 per square meter.

In some cases, abandoned land may not be eligible for a direct sale. In these cases we will attempt to make the land available for sale via the auction system. Here are some of the reasons that requested land may need to be offered as an auction:

• The location has a limited amount of abandoned land in the region.
• The location is neighboring protected land or waterfront.
• The location is in a themed area such as Bay City, Horizons, or Nautilus.
• The location offers bonus object use.
• The location is Adult rated.
• The location is newly abandoned and not known to be available.

These are only guidelines; each request is considered on a case-by-case basis and we may not be able to assist by making an abandoned parcel available as a direct sale or auction.

Review of land that looks abandoned

If you find a parcel that appears to be owned by a defunct account or group, there is a possibility that we can make the parcel available for sale.  However, please note that land owned by a valid account or group is not abandoned, even if it appears to be unused.  Please bear in mind that many Residents have annual accounts, and it may take many months for the account status to expire  if they have chosen to leave or use a different account.  Land cannot be reclaimed simply due to inactivity.

If you have a premium account, you can trigger an auction for abandoned land by opening a support case with the following information:

1. The parcel's SLurl.
2. The concern that prompted you to investigate the parcel's status.