A. Any plat of a municipality or addition thereto or any subdivision of land may be vacated by the owners thereof at any time before the sale of any lots therein by a written instrument declaring the same to be vacated, duly executed, acknowledged or proved and recorded in the same office with the plat to be vacated. The executing and recording of the written instrument, bearing the approval or consent of the municipality in which the plat is situated, shall operate to destroy the force and effect of the recording of the plat so vacated, and to divest all public rights in the public ways, commons, and public grounds laid out as described in the plat.

B. Where any lots in the plat sought to be vacated have been sold, the plat or a portion thereof may be vacated as provided in subsection A of this section, provided that the owners of sixty percent (60%) of the lots in the plat and all of the owners in the area to be vacated join in the execution of the written instrument, the instrument bears the approval of the municipality in which the plat is situated, and such action is not prohibited by any restrictive covenants encumbering the lots in plat.

C. Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions, any plat of record in the office of the county clerk in the county in which the real property is situated, for a period of not less than ten (10) years, which bears the approval of the municipality in which the real property is situated, which replats an existing plat, or a portion thereof, shall be deemed a lawful replatting of any plat, or portion thereof, thereby vacating the plat, or a portion thereof, which is replatted.

D. This section shall not be construed as applying to any of the territory included within the limits of any incorporated municipality created and organized under and by virtue of a special act of the Legislature.

Added by Laws 1977, c. 256, § 42-106, eff. July 1, 1978. Amended by Laws 1993, c. 241, § 2, eff. Sept. 1, 1993; Laws 2002, c. 74, § 1, emerg. eff. April 15, 2002.