You can already refuse to accept local lordship positions. There is an option under the Politics > Paperwork section for lordship.
WHAT?! Oh man, I did miss that... But it's also a blanket refusal, right? And it has to be manually set by the "recipient"... so that wastes the opportunity for an inactivity mechanic, most useful in cases where the player actually unexpectedly cannot return for some time. Adding in this step means you don't have to wait for the automatic boot again. You can just choose someone else and if the original candidate returns and the lordship is taken, well now there's some natural turnover. (
Potential risk of increased placeholder cases, though.)
Alternatively, on an RP angle, maybe I only want a certain region and am holding out for it? I know, in practice, most appointments are discussed beforehand, but in the case of a surprise, why am I forced to go through the "step down" process for a lordship I never wanted?
