"This is something i feel LL needs to make more clear. I don't think the KB really makes the distinction between the billed avatar and the estate owner outright, as far as I can recall. I do get the impression LL put together these policies together with the idea that the EO *must* also be the billed account, which isn't always the case. As such, I think this may affect how different companies handle this change. LL may be bending that rule, but I do feel that in doing so it should adjust its published policies to match."
The KB is confusing on these issues so let me explain it carefully.
The payor is the account billed for an island. By default, and for most of
sl, the payor and the Estate Owner are one and the same. Recently LL began allowing avatars to use the alt-payor/Estate Owner functionality to bill one avatar, but have another as the Estate Owner. They describe this as flexibility, but a security risk. The Estate Owner does not own the island, and it does not, presently, cost anything to do this. However, LL does it at their discretion. Presently the avatar to be assigned EO does not even need to be a premium account. Being EO of an openspace sim does not require the person be an island owner, being payor does. In effect, by using the alt-payor functionality, LL has made the difference between payor and EO, which as far as I am told used to be "none," into a more important distinction. The payor counts for concierge line access, the payor can remove the EO by filing a ticket, the payor can force various issues, such as moving an island or moving it into the red zone of the EO's island, without getting a confirming ticket from the EO. They can ask for one to be nice to the EO, but they do not need to.
In many places where the KB reads "Estate Owner," what it now means is "payor." In case of any dispute, the payor gets final say. The "Estate Owner," in this arrangement, is not the payor, and does not "own" the island from LL's point of view... except.
Except that in the land store the Estate Owner, not the payor, exerts the control of spaces, and someone who is the EO, but not the payor, can place new islands through the land store. They can, I am told, also order new openspace sims if they are EO on a full size sim.
Many things in this area are in flux, and it is understandable that people be confused. However, I will repeat the status quo for clarity.
The island is ordered.
The island is loaded on to the grid.
A ticket is submitted as a new order adjustment to set EO to a different avatar. The new EO cannot be blocked by LL. They may have some other internal review. It takes a widely varying amount of time to be processed, from hours to two weeks.
After some period of time, for reasons known only to the concierge unit, this ticket is processed, and the new EO has the estate owner privileges.