Emails are often not thought of as having ‘weight’, in the sense of creating contractual relations, but a recent case shows how unwise it is to be less than careful about what you put in your email correspondence.
Two sisters, who were communicating with one another on a ‘first-name only’ basis, were considered by the court to be capable of creating a contract by the exchange of emails. In the case in point, no contract was created because the exchange of emails was in relation to property and did not refer to all the terms and conditions of the proposed contract and the exchange, which is a specific requirement for contracts over land. Had the correspondence been in relation to a non-property transaction, however, a contract would have been created.
Partner Note
Green (Liquidator of Stealth Construction Ltd.) v Ireland [2011] EWHC 1305 (Ch). See http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2011/1305.html.