Pre-Deployment Self-Check

The operational gate. Before any new property’s governance vehicle goes live, the project lead and Landseed’s compliance officer must confirm in writing that the deployment does not violate the perimeter.

This is not optional bureaucracy. It is the simple operational expression of the eight bright lines. Any “yes” answer to the questions below blocks deployment until the issue is resolved.

The questions

Q1 — Beneficiary relationships

Does any beneficiary lack a real-world relationship to this specific property?

Acceptable beneficiaries:

• Landowner or family of the property
• Land trust holding the property in fee or easement
• Indigenous community on or co-managing the property
• Corporate landowner of the property
• Sovereign agency administering the property
• Foundation holding the property
• Cultural guardian designated by the property’s community
• Landseed PBC steward (limited scope)
• Local management body for the property

Unacceptable beneficiaries:

• A capital investor with no property relationship
• A coalition entity (Fund, Exchange, Market Makers)
• A speculative party seeking governance for non-property reasons
• A general public-offering subscriber

Q2 — Transferability

Are benefit units transferable in any way that wasn’t approved at deploy?

Acceptable transfer mechanisms:

• DAO-approved succession (death, sale of underlying property, replacement of institutional seat-holder)
• Pre-defined succession per operating agreement

Unacceptable transfer mechanisms:

• Sale of benefit units between members
• Sale to third parties
• Pledge as collateral
• Inheritance to non-stakeholders
• Token-based market trading

Q3 — Treasury isolation

Does the treasury have any path to another DAO’s treasury?

Acceptable treasury operations:

• Receiving revenue from credit sales for this specific property
• Distributing to this DAO’s beneficiaries
• Paying for this property’s stewardship work
• Paying Landseed protocol fee for this property

Unacceptable treasury operations:

• Lending to another DAO’s treasury
• Pooling with another DAO’s treasury
• Acting as collateral for another DAO’s obligations
• Making payments outside this DAO’s beneficiary list (other than service providers documented in operating agreement)

Q4 — Landseed share

Is Landseed taking a distribution share larger than a documented protocol fee?

Acceptable Landseed share:

• Protocol fee within the typical 2–5% range, documented in operating agreement
• Reimbursement for documented services (audit, KYC, methodology stewardship) at cost or near-cost

Unacceptable Landseed share:

• Equity-style stake in property revenue
• Carry-style structure tied to credit price appreciation
• Any share that would make Landseed a “controlling” beneficiary

Q5 — Credit issuance

Are Earth Credits being issued by the DAO rather than the registry?

Acceptable credit issuance:

• Landseed registry issues credits against attested property condition
• Credits flow to buyers via direct sale or Exchange
• Proceeds flow to DAO treasury

Unacceptable credit issuance:

• DAO mints or issues credits
• DAO holds credits as governance positions
• DAO distributes credits to members instead of cash

Q6 — Investment framing

Has any benefit unit been described to anyone as an “investment opportunity”?

Acceptable framings:

• “Governance position in the property’s stewardship vehicle”
• “Membership interest in the LLC holding the property’s VECR”
• “Stewardship role with associated distribution rights”
• “Beneficiary position tied to property’s ecological condition”

Unacceptable framings:

• “Investment in Earth Credits”
• “Stake in the DAO”
• “Buy in to the property’s revenue”
• “Token-based exposure to ecological assets”

Q7 — Solicitation

Is there any solicitation or marketing of benefit units to non-stakeholders?

Acceptable communications:

• Landowner-facing explanations to potential first-cohort participants
• Internal communications about specific deployments
• Post-deployment transparency reporting
• Public communications about the architecture (without offering positions)

Unacceptable communications:

• Marketing materials offering benefit units
• Public solicitations for governance positions
• “Join the property” campaigns
• Investment advertising

Q8 — Landseed control

Has Landseed’s seat composition crossed into controlling territory?

Acceptable Landseed seat scope:

• Methodology authority (proposes new versions; ratification requires beneficiary approval)
• Guardian veto on actions that would deliberately destroy ecological condition
• Single seat per DAO (not multiple seats)
• Limited voting weight (always less than majority on use decisions)

Unacceptable Landseed seat scope:

• Controlling vote on any decision class
• Multiple seats per DAO
• Veto rights beyond the destruction-prevention guardian veto
• Approval rights over distributions to beneficiaries

The procedure

Before any deployment goes live:

1. Project lead drafts pre-deployment summary
2. Landseed compliance officer reviews each question against the deployment specifics
3. Project lead and compliance officer both sign off on each question
4. If any question is unclear, escalate to outside securities counsel
5. If any question is “yes,” deployment is blocked until resolved
6. After all questions are confirmed “no,” deployment proceeds per 02-governance-templates/03-deployment-flow.md

The signed self-check is filed in the deployment record.

Edge cases — when answers are ambiguous

Some real-world situations create ambiguous answers:

Situation	How to handle
Beneficiary relationship is informal	Document the relationship explicitly; if undocumentable, do not include the party as a beneficiary
Transfer is nominally allowed but only to specific parties	Treat as transferable; this is a “yes” — block deployment until restructured
Treasury lends to a property service provider	This is service payment, not lending — acceptable if documented; if it’s actual lending, it’s a “yes”
Landseed’s share is structured as fixed fee + revenue %	Acceptable if documented as protocol fee; unacceptable if structured as equity-style stake
DAO holds credits temporarily for distribution	If members elect in-kind distribution: this requires Q1 in 06-risks/ to resolve favorably first; until then, cash-only
A communication described positions in confusing terms	Retract and re-issue; do not let confusing communications stand as the public framing

Annual re-check

Beyond pre-deployment, the self-check is repeated annually for each operational deployment:

• Has any operational practice drifted from the pre-deployment commitments?
• Have new beneficiaries been added without proper relationship?
• Have communications drifted from acceptable framings?
• Has Landseed’s seat composition changed?

Annual re-check finds drift and corrects before it becomes structural.

What this gate is and isn’t

Is: a simple operational gate enforcing the eight bright lines.

Isn’t: a substitute for outside securities counsel review. The architecture-level analysis is in 02-howey-applied.md, 03-reves-applied.md, etc. The self-check is the per-deployment operational check, not the architecture-level legal analysis.

Isn’t: a substitute for the wrapper-entity legal review. The wrapper LLC’s operating agreement, smart contract design, and operational procedures are reviewed separately.

The self-check is the cumulative confirmation that, for this specific deployment, none of the perimeter has been compromised.

Why eight questions

Each question maps to one of the eight bright lines (01-eight-bright-lines.md). The mapping:

Self-check question	Bright line
Q1 (beneficiary relationships)	Line 2 (no public offering)
Q2 (transferability)	Line 1 (no transferable units)
Q3 (treasury isolation)	Lines 3, 4 (no pooled treasury, no fund-of-DAOs)
Q4 (Landseed share)	Line 7 (Landseed not controlling)
Q5 (credit issuance)	Line 5 (registry issues credits, not DAO)
Q6 (investment framing)	Line 6 (cash distributions, not in-kind) — communications discipline
Q7 (solicitation)	Line 2 (no public offering)
Q8 (Landseed control)	Line 7 (Landseed not controlling)

Each question tests a specific architectural commitment. The eight together cover the perimeter.