(a)  Any person claiming an interest of any kind in land may preserve and keep effective that interest by recording, during the forty (40) year period immediately following the effective date of the root title of the person whose record title would otherwise be marketable, a notice in writing, duly verified by oath, setting forth the nature of the claim. No disability or lack of knowledge of any kind on the part of anyone suspends the running of the forty (40) year period. Such notice may be recorded by the claimant or by any other person acting on behalf of any claimant who is: (1) Under a disability (2) unable to assert a claim on his or her own behalf or (3) one of a class, but whose identity cannot be established or is uncertain at the time of filing such notice of claim record.

Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 34-13.1-5

  • in writing: include printing, engraving, lithographing, and photo-lithographing, and all other representations of words in letters of the usual form. See Rhode Island General Laws 43-3-16
  • person: may be construed to extend to and include co-partnerships and bodies corporate and politic. See Rhode Island General Laws 43-3-6
  • Recorded: means recorded as provided by chapter 13 of this title;

    (d)  "Records" means the Land Evidence Records of the town or city where the particular land is located;

    (e)  "Root of title" means that conveyance or other title transaction in the chain of title of a person, purporting to create or containing language sufficient to transfer the interest claimed by such person, upon which he relies as a basis for the marketability of his title, and which was the most recent to be recorded as of a date forty (40) years prior to the time when marketability is being determined. See Rhode Island General Laws 34-13.1-1

  • Title transaction: means any transaction affecting title to any interest in land, including, but not limited to, title by will or descent, title by tax deed, by public sale, by trustee's, referee's, guardian's, executor's, administrator's, conservator's, Tax collector's, sheriff's, commissioner's, constable's warranty or quitclaim deed, by mortgagee's deed or by decree of any court. See Rhode Island General Laws 34-13.1-1

(b)  If the same record owner of any possessory interest in land has been in possession of that land continuously for a period of forty (40) years or more, during which period no title transaction with respect to the interest appears of record in his or her chain of title and no notice has been recorded by him or her on his or her behalf as provided in subsection (a) of this section, and the possession continues to the time when marketability is being determined, that period of possession shall be deemed equivalent to the recording of the notice immediately preceding the termination of the forty (40) year period described in subsection (a) of this section.

History of Section.
P.L. 1995, ch. 241, § 1; P.L. 1995, ch. 299, § 1.