Important house rules

There are a number of important rules that you, as a homeowner, should be aware of. If you are unaware of these rules, you could be inconvenienced or at worst lose your home!
The ‘7 day waiting period’

You can buy or place a house only once every 7 days on your account, regardless of the character or shard used to acquire the house.

This 7-day waiting period starts from the moment you acquire a house through trade or by placing one. During this period you will not be able to place another house, or receive another house in trade.

You will be informed of this fact when you try to receive a house in trade or place one.

The following actions are not subject to the waiting period, nor do they start or reset the waiting period timer:

• selling a house
• demolishing a house
• changing a pre-built house into a customizable plot

You can verify if and how long you’ll have to wait until you can acquire a house again, by using the House Placing Tool: the message shown in the image above will appear.

Note that the 7 day waiting period is supposed to apply only when you already have a house; if you place a house and then demolish it, you should be able to place a new one right away, without having to wait.
One House per Account

Unlike the old days, you are allowed to own and keep only one house per account. This rule is enforced across all shards; if you play on multiple shards, you will have to choose on which one to build your home as you can have only one. This one home is called your primary house.

You can obtain a second house on your account temporarily, but this will condemn any other house(s) you have on the same account,even those on other shards! You will have to sell or demolish these condemned houses, before they decay and fall down. You are allowed to keep the newly acquired house of course. Exeption to this is placing a house on a test shard, this will not condem your house.

Note that people who had more than one house on their account when this rule came into effect are exempt from this rule, with some limitations (see Grandfathered Houses)
Condemned Houses

A condemned house is a house that will decay and fall down after 5 days. If a house is condemned, this fact will be noted on the house menu. (See the image)

Why do houses go condemned?

• If you own a house on any shard, placing or buying another house will condemn your existing one. You can only have one house per account. You can safely use the house placement tool to check spots and see if they’ll fit a house, as long as you do not actually confirm that you want to place a house.
• If your account goes inactive, your house(s) on it will be condemned after a 90-day grace period. (Houses with rental vendors will fall once they cycle completely through two IDOC states.)

Note: The only way to un-condemn a house is to sell or give the house away to someone else, or demolishing and re-building it (but be careful of the 7-day waiting period!).

“Demolition Pending” Houses

If your house is scheduled to decay but still has contract-vendors with unexpired contracts, the house will list as “Demolition Pending” and not fully decay until 9 days after those contracts expire. Houses with this status cannot be reclaimed, even by reactivating their accounts. These houses remain standing only to allow the contract-vendor owners to reclaim their vended inventory.

When a house collapses, new houses cannot be placed on that lot for a random amount of time.

Improperly Placed Houses

The house menu shows whether your house is properly or improperly placed. If your house is improperly placed, it simply means that it violates the rules for house placement in some way. Since these rules change from time to time, it is possible that a house goes from properly placed to improperly placed. Also, if your neighbour turns a pre-build house into a customizable plot, your house and his may turn into improperly placed ones, under certain conditions.

There are a few minor drawbacks to having an improperly placed house:

• if you demolish an improperly placed house (for example: to try and place a bigger plot), you will not be able to re-place the same house in that location.
• some players will pay less for a house that is improperly placed.

Grandfathered Houses

If you own multiple houses from before the moment when the 1-house-per-account rule came into effect, all your houses will be grandfathered. The house menu will name them as such.

You are allowed to keep all your grandfathered houses, but they must be ‘refreshed’ regularly or they will decay and fall down. It takes about 11 days for a house to collapse, counting from the last time it was refreshed. You refresh a house by opening one of its doors.

When you perform one of the following actions, you will forfeit the privilege of owning multiple houses on your account:

• acquiring a new house through trade or placing. This will condemn all your other houses;
• designating one of your homes to be your primary house, through the house menu. This will condemn all your other houses.
• Using the ‘I wish to resize my house’ option.  This will condemn all your other houses.

Lady Aalia
July 2009