I was searching a totally unrelated thread when someone mentioned that lots created in a Uni subhood should not be used in the main hood and vice versa, because they wouldn't work properly.

Does anyone know why this is and if it's dangerous? I've 'stolen' several buildings from Sim State Uni for my main hood (not dorms, community lots) and I'm hoping that I haven't borked my neighbourhood.

I use community lots interchangeably in all neighborhoods/subhoods and haven't had a problem. I'm always using an unplayed and never-owned copy from my lot bin, but I don't know if unplayed even matters with unowned community lots, since they never save anyway. I've also snarfed community lots from Downtown and stuck a copy of the lot in a Uni hood so that the Uni kids can have an on-campus restaurant without me having to build one because I have this hate thing when it comes to building or playing restaurants. (So basically the opposite of what you did.) Never had a problem and they work properly. And I use regular residential lots -- again unplayed/never-owned copies -- that I've got in my lot bin as rental houses in uni subhoods all the time, again because I can't be arsed to build any just for a uni -- without a problem. Everything works fine.

Anything zoned as a dorm won't work in a non-uni hood, though. In fact, dorms won't even show in the lot bin when you're in a non-uni hood. You have to change the zoning on a dorm to make it residential and then move it to the lot bin. I've done that in order to turn one of the pre-made dorm buildings (One that had never been occupied, mind you) with a few tweaks here and there into quick, cheap apartments with a communal kitchen and bathrooms, like a hostel or boarding house. Again, never had a problem.

What I haven't done, though, is take an occupied residential lot and moved it to or from a Uni hood, but you're not talking about that,

Yeah, moving occupied lots is dodgy no mater where you're putting them. I wonder where the idea that Uni lots are unsafe to move came from then.

Maybe because dorms, once occupied, have dormies assigned to them, who then have "keys" to the place, so if you move out your playable(s) and then move a different playable in, the same dormies will be assigned to that dorm. So I guess there are tokens associated with those lots, which I would think might cause problems if ripped out of their natural habitat. But so far as I know, that only applies to dorms that have been occupied. I can't see how there'd be an issue if you move a never-occupied dorm into the lot catalog and then play around with a copy of it, like I did. I also can't see how it would make any difference for the community lots or the rental lots in a Uni subhood. They don't work any differently than lots elsewhere.

I wonder if No Sim Loaded would burn those tokens. I've often moved lots around, including playing a dorm in the main hood using a mod.

It mattters which hood they were built in, residentials. The uni rental thing vs the normal hood buying a lot on move in. Moving residentials between subhoods doesn't always seem to clear and reset from "uni mode" or vice versa.

But, is that only for residential buildings? So, commercial ones would be okay?