(a) Any person claiming an interest of any kind in land may preserve and keep effective that interest by recording, during the forty-year period immediately following the effective date of the root of 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-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 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 for record.

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(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 years or more, during which period no title transaction with respect to the interest appears of record in his chain of title and no notice has been recorded by him or on his 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-year period described in subsection (a) of this section.