WhatsApp Texts Are Not Contracts, Judge Rules in $2M Divorce Row (thetimes.com) 46
A British painter who argued that her ex-husband had signed over their $2 million north London home through WhatsApp messages has lost her High Court appeal after the judge ruled that the sender's name appearing in a chat header does not constitute a legal signature.
Hsiao-mei Lin, 54, presented messages from her former husband Audun Mar Gudmundsson, a financier, in which he stated he would transfer his share of their Tufnell Park property to her. Lin's lawyers argued that because Gudmundsson's name appeared in the message header on her phone, the messages should be considered signed.
Mr Justice Cawson disagreed, finding that the header identifying a sender is analogous to an email address added by a service provider -- a mechanism for identification rather than part of the message itself. The judge also found the content of the messages did not actually amount to Gudmundsson relinquishing his share.
Hsiao-mei Lin, 54, presented messages from her former husband Audun Mar Gudmundsson, a financier, in which he stated he would transfer his share of their Tufnell Park property to her. Lin's lawyers argued that because Gudmundsson's name appeared in the message header on her phone, the messages should be considered signed.
Mr Justice Cawson disagreed, finding that the header identifying a sender is analogous to an email address added by a service provider -- a mechanism for identification rather than part of the message itself. The judge also found the content of the messages did not actually amount to Gudmundsson relinquishing his share.
Ah (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting.
And in Canada, a thumbs up response is considered a contractual agreement! [slashdot.org]
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[blink gif guy turning his head like confused german shepard dog]
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No! No blinking! No head turns! Those can also be construed as a legally-binding agreement.
well yes (Score:1)
ok (Score:1)
Like I said, there is no "statute of frauds" for selling grain, where you can rely on the fact that specific language was not used to get out of a purported contract. In situations like the one mentioned, it is a question of fact whether the parties intended to be bound. The judge in that case looked at the facts and came to a decision. If you don't want to be bound, then don't do things where there is enough ambiguity such that when you screw the other guy over, he can take you to court and a judge can rea
Re:well yes (Score:4, Interesting)
The UK has a special rule for real estate, requiring writing and a signature to be valid. Good reasons for that, because of the value and life implications of real estate transactions.
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The UK has a special rule for real estate, requiring writing and a signature to be valid.
Same in the US for real property contracts; both signatures on the written contract.
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Re: Ah (Score:2)
This was the first thing that came to my mind too.
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Anything but work... (Score:4, Interesting)
Setting a precendent (Score:2)
At least their problems didn't set a precedent a WhatsApp message is a written contract.
It might come as a surprise but "oral- or verbal- contracts" (also called "handshake agreements" elsewhere) are a thing.
Also, the issue of the ruling is whether the court could trust the "sender" information and consider it something genuinely sent by the message author.
By some moon-logic, because in e-mails the sender is part of the headers and those can be altered while in transit as part of normal operations, therefore in WhatsApp which absolutely does NOT run on e-mail protocols (and relies instead o
Re:Setting a precendent (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, the texts went like this:
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." He continued, “Please let me know that u r happy with this and we can then close the financial part of the divorce this week,” with Ms Lin replying, “with some monthly maintenance then ok.”
In my reading, that's an offer to sign over a share, not actually doing the signing and completing the transaction. It calls out "closing the financial part," and "then I can sign over," and not anything like, "I hereby sign over my interest to you." It feels like the wife is grasping at straws with this.
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“with some monthly maintenance then ok.”
This is not an agreement to the original contract! It's a new contract (a counter-offer) which the other party did not agree to (based on the text we can see).
This is no different than one person saying "$55?" and another replying "$60 and it's yours". Until the first person says "deal", then neither $55 nor $60 was actually accepted.
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We do not see the original communication.
But from the context of the article, it looks like it was a mere conversation and the other party said something in the sense of: "yes, we can do that".
And that means: "I am open to make a written contract or do the necessary paper work together with you"
It does not mean, the deal is done.
Look at it from this point: ... ... there was
"Sure, I can sell you the car for $4000, just come over and give me the money, and I give you the papers and the keys"
You never came, so
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Re:Anything but work... (Score:4, Interesting)
Makes sense (Score:3)
Email / test senders are also veeeery easy to fake and then bear no marks of being faked. Hence everything a signature needs is absent beyond the basic claim to identity.
Wrong metaphor for WhatsApp (Score:2)
Yes, e-mail headers could be altered (and routinely are for functional reason) by absolutely any relay along the route.
And even when using things like S/MIME or PGP, they are not authenticated (again because they can be altered as part of a normal e-mail transit)
BUT WhatsApp does not rely on the e-mail protocol.
It uses a variation of the Signal Protocol which works differently and thus the point of this metaphor is moot.
Re:Wrong metaphor for WhatsApp (Score:4, Insightful)
And how does WhatsApp determine identity of a sender? By the login. A login can be stolen and get hacked. Using a login does reliably identify a person.
The second thing is that "signing something" is a legal act that you need to do intentionally and knowingly. A WhatsApp (or any other message) without a signature manually typed in or preconfigured by the sender or at least accepted and confirmed by the sender cannot ever be considered a "signed contract". The "deliberate act" is missing. That said, some things like signing over real estate typically even need a more formal process, namely an attestation by a notary.
So, yes, that judgement is correct.
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I don't think anyone asserted that the messages weren't sent by the people who purported to send them. In fact, 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".' [msn.com]
So it was only the second of your reasons that kicked in... not any doubt about the validity of the sender's identity.
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Signal protocol (Score:2)
My main point is that the e-mail metaphor is not well adapted to describe how modern secure chat service work.
While the points made about e-mail are valid, they are simply not applicable to WhatsApp because it works completely differently.
And how does WhatsApp determine identity of a sender? By the login.
Actually: no.
One doesn't "login" (in classical the sense of sending credential to a server and it answering) into most modern secure chat systems.
Identity of a sender is determined by secure cryptographic keys held by the client, and server has little to do with this (Ther
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- You would need to steal the whole device while it is operating and unlocked to be able to access those.
Or borrow it. You know, like if you live in the same house before the divorce.
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The real WTF to me are the specific arguments used in the logic: that headers in e-mail are added by the service - yes, and? What the hell does it have to do with WhatsApp?
That one is really simple: The name in the header can under no circumstances be seen as a signature as it was not added by the sender. If the sender had signed their message, that could maybe have been seen as a signature. But for the header, no way.
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A login can be stolen and get hacked.
And particularly relevant for a divorce situation, a significant other who can grab your phone and knows your passcode certainly doesn't count as being you.
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There is no "normal email transit" since 30 years or more that you can intercept and alter a message.
It is all SSL/TSL encrypted. /FACEPALM
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Email / test senders are also veeeery easy to fake and then bear no marks of being faked. Hence everything a signature needs is absent beyond the basic claim to identity.
You're not making any sense. Signatures are very easy to fake, that doesn't make signatures legally invalid. Faxes are very easy to fake that doesn't make them legally invalid.
The problem here was lack of a complete contract. Proof of offer is only required for a partial offer. Yes courts in the UK have ruled Email and WhatsApp can be part of a binding contract in the past. But you need more than pretty words sent over the internet to do that.
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And yet, email is used for all kinds of binding agreements. When I bought my house, I submitted my offer by email, and the seller accepted by email. Both were considered legally binding.
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Nope.
They where considered as "expression of your will to d the deal".
Legal binding was the actual paper, deed, and registry in the land registry court.
As long as you do not do the final steps, there is nothing legal binding happening.
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Yes, there are legally binding steps prior to closing. For example, the earnest money agreement is often handled by email. The seller gets to keep the earnest money if you back out, even though all the business up to that point was conducted by email. That's a legally binding agreement worth thousands of dollars.
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Good luck with trying that argument in court. Now, if you were a company, this does look a bit different.
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Email have already been found to be binding by courts in numerous cases.
https://baileylawfirm.com/2016... [baileylawfirm.com].
https://www.boyarmiller.com/ar... [boyarmiller.com].
https://www.cowlesthompson.com... [cowlesthompson.com]
https://www.casemine.com/judge... [casemine.com]
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Email can be binding if it is a clear expression of will.
The chat in question was not of that kind.
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Email can be binding if it is a clear expression of will.
Indeed, I think that's what I've been trying to say.
The chat in question was not of that kind.
To the contrary. The chat in question was crystal clear in its intent. The reason it was voided was that British law expressly requires real estate transactions to be concluded with formal contracts.
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For me it was clear in intend, perhaps. But then the talk and the conclusive doing stopped. So in impression, there was originally the intent to share or transfer the rights on a house, but then they stopped working on it.
But it was not voided.
The whole thing was just not finished, as in doing the paperwork.
And for real estate, it is more or less all over the planet the same: the deal has to be sealed in a deed at the land registration office.
So, if she had sued under a different pretext, or simply had deal
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You should look at the "raw text" of an email.
An email is not fake proof, but not really that easy to fake.
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I operate my own mail-server. I can always create a second one, add a fake alias in the last or first step and swap out the IP addresses. And then I can create as much realistic fake email as I want.
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You mean "realistic looking", that is a difference versus realistic.
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A signature is also extremely easy to fake, and there have been millions of cases where this has been done.
When new ways to do things come along, they are often subjected to a lot more scrutiny, even when the old ways are even worse.
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Not this easy.
They can be contracts (Score:2)
Headline misleading - real estate need signature (Score:5, Insightful)
The core of the situation is that UK law specifically requires real estate contracts to be in writing, and signed.
Agreements generally can be entered into by text message, no problem at all. And there's probably a decision somewhere that manually typing in your name at the end of a text message constitutes a signature.
The argument here was that if the messaging app automatically put in a name, then that constituted a signature. A bad argument.
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Well, the message app obviously puts a name on top of the message, if at all. ... it does not even do that.
And looking at my WhatsApp
Just like any other chat app, the name of the person you are chatting with, is on top of the screen of the app. And not in any message.