(1) When any husband and wife have not cohabited as husband and wife for 30 years or more and during this time the husband has conveyed land as a single man and the land has come into the hands of purchasers for a valuable consideration without notice that the husband was married at the time he conveyed the land, and the purchasers have relied on the acknowledgment to deeds by the husband that he was a single man, and it afterwards became known that he was a married man at the time he deeded the land and his marriage has never been dissolved and he refuses to voluntarily get a dissolution of marriage to clear the title to preclude his wife from claiming any inchoate dower therein and his heirs from claiming any interest therein and when the wife has never lived in the county where the land is located with the husband as his wife and has never asserted any inchoate right to dower in the land, the inchoate right to dower is divested and is a cloud on the title to the land and the purchaser of the land has the right to remove the cloud and to prevent the wife or heirs from claiming any dower or other interest from such purchasers and their successors in title.

(2) When these facts are proven, the court shall adjudge that the wife and heirs of the husband are forever barred and perpetually enjoined from claiming any interest in the land arising out of dower or otherwise, and that the wife did not join in the execution of the deeds by which the husband deeded the land as a single man under the facts above-stated is not effective to reserve an inchoate right of dower in the land held by such purchasers.

History.—ss. 1, 2, ch. 19116, 1939; CGL 5011(1), (2); s. 2, ch. 29737, 1955; s. 20, ch. 67-254; s. 1, ch. 73-300.

1Note.—Chapter 73-107 abolished the right of dower in property transferred prior to death. See also s. 732.111.

Note.—Former s. 66.25.