A High Court judge in a test case involving a dispute over the ownership of property belonging to a former husband and wife has ruled WhatsApp messages are not legally binding signatures in the transfer of property.
In Maxine Reid-Roberts & Anor v Hsiao Mei-Lin & Anor, Mr Justice Cawson did not consider WhatsApp messages satisfied s.53(1) (a) or (c) of the Law of Property Act 1925 (LPA 1925), which state “no interest in land can be created or disposed of except by writing signed by the person creating or conveying the same…,” and “a disposition of an equitable interest or trust subsisting at the time of the disposition must be in writing signed by the person disposing of the same…”.
The case centred around the legal validity of a WhatsApp message sent by Audun Mar Gudmundsson to his then wife, Hsiao Mei-Lin, during their divorce negotiations. Mei-Lin was awarded the family home, jointly owned by the couple at the time.
In the messages at the centre of the claim, Mei-Lin claimed Gudmundsson had handed her sole ownership of the property before bankruptcy proceedings were commenced against him. The appellants in the case – Maxine Reid-Roberts and Brian Burke – were joint trustees in the bankruptcy of Gudmundsson, with both Mei-Lin and Gudmundsson as the respondents.
The couple’s divorce was finalised in March 2020, when a judge ordered Gudmundsson to hand over his 50% stake in the family home to Mei-Lin. A week earlier, he had been made bankrupt on a petition from a former friend, allegedly owing him and others more than £2.5 million.
At a High Court hearing in 2024, a judge declared Ms Lin owned 50% of the property, with the other half going into Mr Gudmundsson’s bankruptcy. She was ordered to leave the house and sell it to free up funds for the creditors, with the judge delaying the order until 2032 when both her children will be adults.
Mei-Lin argued that the effect of the messages was that she was the outright owner of the house, and had been an “innocent victim of her husband’s bankruptcy.”
One of the messages stated:
“I suggest that the responsibility for taking care of the kids goes to u 100%, then I can sign over my share of southcote road to u without any complications as I don’t need any accommodation in London.
“Please let me know that u r happy with this and we can then close the financial part of the divorce this week.”
Ms Lin replied: “with some monthly maintenance then ok.”
Some time after the exchange of messages, Gudmundsson was the subject of the bankruptcy proceedings.
Mr Justice Cawson acknowledged WhatsApp messaging is a well-established method of communications. However, he disputed Mei-Lin’s claim that Gudmundsson’s name appearing in her WhatsApp chat feed was sufficient to amount to a signature for the purposes of S.53 (1) LPA 1925.
The judge noted:
“It is her case that it does not matter whether or not Mr Gudmundsson put the name there himself, so long as the intention behind the same was to authenticate the fact that the relevant WhatsApps came from him.”
In a detailed examination of authorities dating back to 1844 (Lobb v Stanley), Mr Justice Cawson identified several more recent analogous cases deliberating the use of electronic correspondence and the relevance of headings and signatures.
Mei-Lin’s claim that Gudmundsson’s name appearing in the header to the messages authenticated the message as originating from him was dismissed by the judge, who noted:
“It is not, as I see it, part of the actual message itself, but merely provides a mechanism designed by the relevant service provider to allow the sender of the email or WhatsApp message to be identified. It is, I consider, therefore, properly to be regarded as incidental to the message itself, rather than as forming part thereof.”
He added:
“On this basis, I do not consider that the WhatsApp messages would have satisfied the requirements of s.53(1)(a) or (c) LPA 1925 even if I had found that the WhatsApp messages were to be read as effecting a release or disposition of Mr Gudmundsson’s interest in the Property.
“This serves to reinforce my overall conclusion that there has been no such release or disposition given that I find it impossible to see how, taken alone, the relevant emails could have affected such a release or disposition…”
Dismissing the arguments from Mei-Lin, Mr Justice Cawson ordered the property to be vacated by July 2027.
