A divorcee who claimed her ex-husband signed over their £1.5 million home to her via WhatsApp has lost her case – after a High Court judge ruled the message was not a binding contract.
Artist Hsiao Mei-Lin argued the text from her financier ex Audun Gudmundsson formed a formal agreement to hand her the house they shared in affluent Tufnell Park, north London.
Ms Mei-Lin, 54, insisted that because the message appeared on her phone under his name and was sent from his device, it should be considered a ‘written and signed’ contract.
High Court judge Mr Justice Cawson has now thrown out her arguments and ordered her to get out of the house by the end of July next year, saying the evidence fell ‘well short’ of proving that he had wanted to relinquish his share.
‘I consider that the header within a WhatsApp “chat” identifying the sender is analogous to the email address that is added by the relevant service provider to the top of an email.
‘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.
‘In these circumstances, I find it difficult to see that there can have been the necessary authenticating intent.’
Hsiao Mei-Lin (left) failed to convince a judge that the WhatsApp from her ex-husband Audun Gudmundsson amounted to a legally binding contract
The £1.5 million home in affluent Tufnell Park, north London, that Ms Mei-Lin claimed her ex-husband had signed over to her via WhatsApp
Ms Mei-Lin’s fight to keep the family property was a legal test case over whether statements in WhatsApp messages can become legally binding.
The court heard that, during their divorce negotiations, Mr Gudmundsson, 54, had texted his wife saying: ‘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.’
Ms Mei-Lin was a Taiwan-born British citizen who studied at the Royal Academy School of Arts in London and enjoyed a successful painting career. Mr Gudmundsson ran a mezzanine finance company.
The couple married in 2009 but separated in 2016. Their divorce was finalised in 2020.
Although Ms Mei-Lin was awarded the house in the divorce, Mr Gudmundsson had been made bankrupt one week earlier, owing £2.5 million.
It meant Ms Mei-Lin was unable to take sole ownership of the house and, after a hearing at the High Court in 2024, a judge declared her only 50 per cent owner, with the other half going into Mr Gudmundsson’s bankruptcy.
In a two-day appeal hearing last month, the trustees, Maxine Reid-Roberts and Brian Burke, disputed that the WhatsApp messages validly ‘disposed of’ Mr Gudmundsson’s interest in the house.
Steven Fennel, for the trustees, said: ‘The fact the identity of the sending account is clear does not mean that messages from that account are “signed”.’
As well as finding that the messages did not satisfy the ‘signed’ requirement in law, the judge also found that the content of the messages themselves did not amount to Mr Gudmundsson immediately giving up his share.
‘I have come to the firm view that they do not demonstrate Mr Gudmundsson evincing an intention at any point to unequivocally and immediately relinquish his interest in the Property in favour of Ms Lin,’ he said.
The judge cut the amount of time Ms Lin has to get out of the house, telling her to leave by 31 July 2027, when previously she had been given until 2032.