Any purchaser for value acquiring a severed mineral interest in real estate from a person who claims such interest, immediately or remotely, through a recorded affidavit of death and heirship or a recital of death and heirship in a recorded title transaction, as that term is defined in Section 78 of Title 16 of the Oklahoma Statutes, shall acquire a valid and marketable title to such interest as against any person claiming adversely to such recorded affidavit or recital on the following conditions:

1. 1. The affidavit or recital states that the decedent died without a will;
2. 2. The affidavit or recital lists the names of the decedent's heirs and their relationship to the decedent;
3. 3. The affidavit or recital states that the maker is related to the decedent or otherwise has personal knowledge of the facts stated therein;
4. 4. The affidavit or the title transaction that contains the recital has been recorded for at least ten (10) years in the office of the county clerk in the county in which the real property is located; and

5. 5. No instrument inconsistent with the heirship alleged in the affidavit or recital has been filed in the office of the county clerk in the county in which the real property is located.

   This section shall apply to affidavits recorded before the effective date of this act as well as to those recorded thereafter, except that, with respect to those recorded before such date, the ten-year period specified above shall not expire until one (1) year after the effective date of this act.

   This section shall not apply as against any person in possession of the land, by occupancy or by occupancy of a tenant, at the time such purchaser acquires an interest in such land.

Added by Laws 1999, HB 1817, c. 84, § 2, eff. November 1, 1999.