Can You Be Personally Sued? What Estate Agency Directors Don’t Know About Harassment Claims
This may shock you, and it should.
A director can be named personally in an Equality Act harassment claim, alongside the company, if the director personally committed the unlawful act. Individual liability under discrimination law is uncapped. Most people running estate and letting agencies have never been told this.
In Short: Directors are not automatically shielded when a harassment claim reaches tribunal. Under the Equality Act 2010, an individual can be personally liable for their own discriminatory or harassing act. Separately, under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, a director whose consent, connivance or neglect contributed to a company safety offence can face prosecution. An active, documented safety system can help demonstrate what steps the business and its directors took; it is not an automatic defence to either claim.
Key Facts:
- Under Section 110 of the Equality Act 2010, an employee or agent, which can include a director acting in that capacity, can be personally liable for a discriminatory or harassing act they carried out, separately from the employer.
- There is no statutory cap on compensation for discrimination or harassment under the Equality Act, unlike the compensatory award for unfair dismissal.
- Under Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, a director, manager or company secretary can be prosecuted where a company offence is proved to have happened with their consent, connivance or neglect. Penalties depend on the offence and circumstances and can include an unlimited fine, imprisonment or disqualification.
- HSE guidance explains that neglect may be established even without knowledge of a specific risk if a director failed to act on information they reasonably should have been aware of.
- Documented, active safety measures can help demonstrate the steps a director took rather than leaving a foreseeable risk to an informal process.
Why Directors Assume They’re Protected, and Why That’s Wrong
Most directors think of liability as something the company absorbs. Limited liability protects personal assets from the company’s ordinary business debts, and it’s easy to assume the same shield extends to employment claims. It doesn’t, not automatically.
Two separate legal routes can bring a director into a case personally. The first is under the Equality Act 2010. Section 109 makes an employer potentially liable for harassment or discrimination carried out by staff in the course of their employment. Section 110 goes further: it can make the individual who did the unlawful act, whether an employee or an agent, personally liable too. A director is not personally liable under Section 110 simply because they failed to prevent harassment by a viewer or tenant; the question is whether they themselves committed an unlawful act. Read more about the employer’s harassment-prevention duty.
The second route sits in health and safety law rather than discrimination law. Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 allows prosecution of a director, manager or company secretary where a health and safety offence by the company is proved to have occurred with that individual’s consent, connivance or neglect. HSE guidance describes connivance as knowing about a risk and not acting on it, often to save time or cost, and neglect as failing to act on information a director reasonably should have known. Neither requires proof that the director intended harm. For the wider picture, see our UK compliance framework.
What This Means in Practice for a Solo Viewing
We can all easily picture the scenario in the property business: a negotiator conducts a solo viewing in the evening, is harassed by the person they’re showing round and later brings a claim. The agency may face a claim under employment law, but the viewer’s conduct does not, by itself, make the director personally liable under Section 110. Personal Equality Act liability would require an unlawful act by the director, while a separate Section 37 prosecution would require an offence by the company and proof of the director’s consent, connivance or neglect.
A solo viewing without any check-in process, alarm route or documented risk assessment is nevertheless a foreseeable safety concern. If the company commits a health and safety offence, the record of what the director knew and did could become important. An informal WhatsApp check-in arrangement, run by a branch manager with no oversight or audit trail, may be difficult to rely on as the only measure. See why WhatsApp check-ins need more than good intentions.
This is where agency size matters. In a five-person independent agency, the director is usually also the person managing staff day to day, which makes awareness of working practices harder to deny. In a larger regional agency, the argument shifts, but the need for oversight doesn’t disappear. Whether Section 37 applies depends on the company’s offence and the individual’s own role, not simply on headcount.
So, no matter the size of your company, directors should know how safety responsibilities are being carried out. It’s a bit like handing your accounts to an accountant because you don’t have the time or the expertise to do them yourself. You still have to sign to say you approve them. You can delegate tasks, but you need to check that important controls actually work.
The Evidence Question
If an incident led to a claim or investigation tomorrow, could you show which protective measures were in place and whether they were used, or would the record show an assumption that things were fine? That’s the practical question. It isn’t about whether an agency has good intentions. It’s about whether there’s a record.
This is where The Sentry’s Compliance Portal is relevant. It can help create a documented, timestamped record of how a lone worker safety system was used and maintained, rather than leaving every step in a policy document. For a director, that record is useful evidence of the precautions taken, though it cannot by itself establish that every legal duty has been met.
Is your agency’s safety system something you could produce as evidence tomorrow, or something you’d have to describe from memory? If it’s the latter, that’s worth fixing before it’s tested. Book a free demo to see how The Sentry’s Compliance Portal helps build that record.
What Directors Should Actually Do
Reducing personal exposure isn’t about legal knowledge for its own sake. It’s about three concrete things: knowing where lone working happens in the business, having an active system rather than an informal or passive one, and being able to show, with dates and records, that the system was used. These measures also matter for teams carrying out solo visits in social housing.
A written policy that nobody follows is weak evidence that practical steps were taken. The same logic applies to a discrimination claim: a tribunal will look at the facts and the employer’s actual actions, not just the contents of a policy binder. No particular app or platform guarantees compliance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a director really be personally sued alongside the company for a harassment claim?
Yes, if the director personally commits an unlawful act in the course of employment or as an agent, Section 110 of the Equality Act 2010 can apply alongside employer liability under Section 109. The director is not automatically personally liable merely because another person harassed a worker.
Is there a cap on how much a director could personally have to pay?
No statutory compensation cap applies to a successful discrimination or harassment claim under the Equality Act. Liability still depends on the facts and the legal basis of the claim.
What does “consent, connivance or neglect” actually mean under health and safety law?
Consent involves knowing approval; connivance involves knowing about wrongdoing and not intervening; neglect can involve failing to act on information a director reasonably should have known. Section 37 also requires proof of an offence by the organisation.
Does professional indemnity or directors’ and officers’ insurance cover this?
It depends entirely on the policy. Ask your broker what is covered and excluded, including any conditions about managing health and safety risks, rather than assuming cover exists.
What’s the single most useful thing a director can do this month to reduce exposure?
Get a clear, current picture of where and when staff are working alone, and check whether there is an active, used system in place, not just a written policy. If check-ins happen informally over WhatsApp, review whether that arrangement actually addresses the risks identified in your assessment.
Rebecca Evans is COO at The Sentry, specialising in the UK property sector.
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