When you buy a house you receive 20 shares all in all. These shares are like stocks to the house. You can hand them out to up to 20 characters who will become co owner of the house. The more shares one character has, the greater his part of the house. A character doesn't need to carry the shares on him, he can deposit them in his vault. In fact there is no need to carry shares around since they are never needed in daily operations. Their only purpose as tangible goods is to give you information who owns how much. Double click a share and you will receive information who owns how many shares.
DO NOT CARRY YOUR SHARES AROUND IN A BOX!
When you carry your shares plainly in your inventory and you are killed, you will keep the shares, they will not be dropped on the floor with your other belongings. But if you carry them around in a box and you are killed, this box is dropped on the floor and anybody who picks up the shares will become co owner of your house! The only way to get the shares back then, is to recall them.
A share can also have a monetary value associated to it. This is usually 1/20 of the purchase price of the house that is represented by the share. But when you give a share away to somebody in a trade window, you usually receive a monetary sum back in the same trade. This sum is then associated with these particular shares traded. For example when you give away 2 shares of a house that has cost 100,000 credits and receive 50,000 credits for the two shares, each share will be worth 25,000 credits. This is clearly more than the 5,000 creadits representing 1/20 of the purchase price, but since you and your trading partner agreed on this sum, the share's value will be altered.
A shares value is important when it comes to Recalling the shares. This practice is used when the co owners don't get along anymore. In order to prevent a malicious co owner from blocking the owner by just keeping a share. By doing so the co owner can prevent the house owner from selling the house and he has access to all affairs of the house like keys, locks, vendors. Since this is an unproportional hardship, the mechanism of Recalling exist. By selecting the Recall button on the Room Owners Tab, the house owner withdraws all shares from all share holders and re-possesses them.
However, he can only do this if he is able to compensate the shareholders with money. Here, the share-price comes into play. The house owner who recalls the shares must have enough money to pay the price of all recalled shares. The money is transferred to the former shareholders and the shares are transferred back to the house owner. If the houseowner does not have enough money, the recall action is not performed. The items in the house that belonged to shareholders, including the content of lockers and vendors that belonged to the shareholder, but not the empty vendors, are transported into the shareholders vault into a new locker.
After a Recall action, shareholders should check their bank account and their vault to make sure everything was reimbursed or send to their vault.
Since a recall can happen at the sole discretion of the house owner it is important that characters who purchase a share to a house insist on make the trade a pure share-to-money trade with the whole sum that was agreed upon transferred in exchange for the shares. Only if the shares and the money are transferred in one step can the system associate the shares with the monetary value and only then can the shareholder be sure that he receives his money back in case the house owner recalls the shares.
Whenever a share is destroyed or a co owner dies, the share will be recreated at server restart in the inventory of the house owner. So if you miss a share, wait until server restart and check the house owner's inventory. Most likely it will show up there.
A co-ownership is primarily for characters who trust each other to either share a house or run a business together. Since it is about trust and sharing the work of a business, a co-owner can do most of the things the original owner can do. In fact one of the few things where the actual owner takes precedence over the co owner is when it comes to selling the house. Only the original owner can do that, but only if he owns all shares.
The most important thing and the matter that causes the most confusion, are vendors. When a co-owner or the original owner places a vendor, it is is his vendor and all the items stored in the vendor become his. However, all co owners share the revenue if the vendor sells something. Also all co owners have equal access to all vendors and can reprogram them or take goods or money out of them. when in doubt, check out the vendor history to see if a co-owner took out items or money.
Just like with a marriage, keep in mind that your partnership might end in mud. Don't let your co-owner lock down your property since it becomes his property. There is not really a protection against malicious co-owners. They can pick up your items and when you recall the shares, they might end up in their vault. Use Recall as a last resort and make sure that you own your items in the house before recalling.
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