Estate agent awarded £185,000 following high-profile sex discrimination case

A leading prime London estate agent who won her claim of indirect sex discrimination against her former estate agency employer has been awarded £185,000 by a compensation panel following a hearing earlier this year.

In May the tribunal heard that Alice Thompson, who at the time was working for Mayfair agency Manors earning £120,000 a year as a sales manager, had requested to return to work following the birth of her child in November 2018 on more flexible working hours but been refused.

It was revealed that company boss Paul Sellar told her that the additional costs and staff reorganisation required to accommodate her request made it ‘unworkable’.

Thompson worked at Manors between October 2016 and December 2019 following nine years pent at Foxtons where she has risen from negotiator to sales manager. She now works as a director of leading hybrid estate agency in Surrey.

Huge payout

At the tribunal Thompson also claimed that she faced discrimination during an expenses-paid trip to New York when she was pregnant in August 2018, claiming that the excessive drinking and eating during the trip made her feel isolated, and that she was unable to attend a river trip due to being pregnant.

But Judge Sarah Goodman said her feelings of exclusion were not due to any actions by the company, which said it had done everything to accommodate Thompson on the trip including moving its date forward and that photographs taken at the event showed her to be ‘smiling and confident’.

Read the tribunal judgement in full.

Read more about discrimination claims.