Por Syed Muhammad Daud Rizvi — Cofundador da TapOkie Work. Constrói check-ins por visita e monitorização auditável para trabalhadores isolados em pequenas equipas — sem lock-in enterprise.
The 40th anniversary of Suzy Lamplugh's disappearance coincides with significant new regulatory pressure: the Worker Protection Act 2023 is already in force, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 continues implementation through October 2026. A Peoplesafe survey of 1,000 UK estate agents found 53 per cent had no formal lone worker policy — so the cost of inaction has materially risen.
Forty years on
In August 1986, Suzy Lamplugh — a 25-year-old negotiator at a Fulham estate agency — left to conduct a viewing and never returned. She was declared presumed dead in 1994. Her parents founded the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, which has since become the UK's leading authority on personal safety and lone working, providing guidance to employers and campaigning for legislative change over four decades.
August 2026 marks the fortieth anniversary of her disappearance. It is also a moment when the regulatory environment for UK employers — including the approximately 26,000 estate agency businesses across the country, the majority of them independent SMEs with between one and fifteen staff — has materially changed.
What the anniversary means for the industry
Propertymark, the professional membership body for UK estate agents, issued updated lone-working guidance in August 2026 in recognition of the anniversary. Its publication reflects what industry bodies increasingly recognise: the gap between what employers are now legally expected to provide and what most independent branches actually have in place remains significant.
A Peoplesafe survey of 1,000 UK estate agents found that 53 per cent had no formal lone worker policy in place. For an industry where solo viewings with previously unknown clients at empty properties are a routine part of day-to-day work, that figure warrants serious attention.
The risk profile of an estate agency viewing is specific and documented: an unknown client, an empty property, no colleague present, no formal detection if the worker does not return on time. Controls do not need to be elaborate. But they do need to exist and to be applied consistently.
The current regulatory landscape
The legal framework for lone working in UK estate agency has shifted in the two years to 2026. Two pieces of legislation are directly relevant.
Worker Protection Act 2023
The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force in October 2024. It introduced a new proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. EHRC technical guidance is clear that this duty includes assessing and addressing risks from third parties such as clients and members of the public.
For estate agents, this is not a peripheral concern. Workers conducting solo viewings with members of the public sit squarely in the third-party risk profile the guidance expects employers to address. The duty is proactive: it does not wait for an incident to occur. Employers must demonstrate that they assessed the risk and put reasonable steps in place.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has powers to investigate employers who fail to demonstrate reasonable steps. An employment tribunal can also increase a sexual harassment award by up to 25 per cent where the employer's preventative duty has not been met.
Employment Rights Act 2025
The Employment Rights Act 2025 is a broader piece of legislation whose provisions are being implemented in phases through 2026. Estate agency owners should seek their own legal or HR advice on the specific provisions that apply to their business and its stage of implementation.
What the Act signals in practical terms is consistent with the Worker Protection Act 2023: the standard of "all reasonable steps" is now the operative benchmark for employer obligations. Informal arrangements — a group chat, a buddy call at the end of the day, "call me if there's a problem" — do not constitute a process that meets that standard.
Why WhatsApp is not a lone worker process
The most common arrangement in small estate agencies today is some version of the following: workers are expected to call or message if something goes wrong, a colleague or manager has their number, and there is a general understanding that someone will notice if they do not come back.
In practice, this arrangement has predictable failure modes:
- A worker who feels threatened or uncomfortable may not be in a position to initiate a message
- Out-of-hours, notification depends on someone having their phone to hand and alert notifications on
- There is no automatic detection when a session overruns — a missed check-out only becomes apparent when someone realises the worker has not been in touch
- There is no record of when the visit started, how long it was expected to take, when the alert was raised, or how it was resolved
- There is no evidence, after the fact, that any consistent process was applied
When an insurer, HSE inspector, or solicitor asks for your lone working records following an incident, "we used WhatsApp" is not a sufficient answer. The gap is not merely reputational — it is legal.
What a proportionate response looks like for a small agency
The following reflects the kinds of controls that constitute a proportionate response for an independent agency of three to twenty staff. Employers should take their own advice on the precise legal requirements applicable to their situation.
A written risk assessment for lone viewings. Identify the specific scenarios: unknown clients, empty properties, out-of-hours viewings, remote stock, first contacts. Assess likelihood and severity. Document the controls in place. Review after any incident and at least annually.
A written lone worker policy. Linked to the risk assessment. It should specify which roles it covers, how check-in works in practice, who the escalation chain is — named individuals, not just job titles — and what out-of-hours coverage exists. Workers should acknowledge they have read it.
Check-in and check-out with automatic alert on missed departure. Workers start a timed session before entering a property alone. If the session is not ended within the expected window, a manager receives an alert automatically. This is the operational control that replaces the informal "call when you're done" arrangement. Detection should not depend on the worker being in a position to initiate contact.
Realistic session windows. A viewing booked for 45 minutes that routinely runs to an hour should have a 60 or 70-minute window. Persistent false alarms caused by unrealistic timers will erode manager confidence and lead to alerts being muted — the most common failure mode in any monitoring system.
SOS capability. Workers should be able to raise an immediate alert with a single action from their phone if a situation escalates during a visit.
An escalation chain that covers your actual working hours. If agents conduct weekend or evening viewings — which most do — the escalation chain needs to cover those hours. A branch manager who is unreachable on a Sunday afternoon is not a functioning primary contact for out-of-hours visits.
Exportable session records. When an insurer, solicitor, or inspector asks to see your lone working history, you need to be able to produce it promptly. A downloadable record of sessions, alerts, and responses is the evidence standard most organisations now expect.
Proportionate options for independent agencies
The requirements above do not mandate an enterprise platform, dedicated hardware, or a BS 8484-certified Alarm Receiving Centre. What they require is a documented process that works in practice, is actually used by staff, and leaves a record.
For most independent estate agencies, a simple app-based check-in on existing smartphones is entirely proportionate. Workers tap to start and end a session. Managers see active visits on a dashboard. Alerts fire automatically on missed check-outs. Session history exports in one click for compliance use.
TapOkie Work is built for exactly this scale — month-to-month, no hardware, no contract, set up in a working afternoon. It is one option among several. What matters most is that whatever system you choose meets the operational criteria above and is embedded into daily practice, not sitting unused in a policy document that nobody has opened since it was written.
Honouring the legacy by acting
The Suzy Lamplugh Trust's forty years of work have moved personal safety in estate agency from a marginal concern to a documented regulatory expectation. The anniversary in 2026 is a reasonable prompt for agency owners — many of whom run excellent businesses but have never formally reviewed their lone worker obligations — to close the gap.
The controls required for a small agency are not complex. A risk assessment, a written policy, a check-in system, a named escalation chain, and records: none of this is disproportionate for a business whose staff enter empty properties alone with strangers as a matter of routine. It is the minimum that is reasonably practicable.
August 2026 is forty years on from Suzy Lamplugh's disappearance. It is also the year in which regulatory pressure to act has never been higher. Both are good reasons to treat this as the moment to put the process in place.
Related reading
- Estate agents and ERA 2025: what the October 2026 deadline means for lone working
- Estate agent lone worker policy: a practical framework
- How to write a lone worker policy
- Lone worker risk assessment basics
- UK lone worker legislation: employer duties explained
- Lone worker monitoring for estate agents
- Features
Perguntas frequentes
Is the Suzy Lamplugh case still relevant to modern estate agency safety?
Yes. Her disappearance in 1986 established the specific risk profile of solo property viewings — an unknown client, an empty property, no colleague present — that UK legislation and industry guidance now address directly. The risk remains a documented part of estate agency work.
What does the Worker Protection Act 2023 mean for estate agents?
It introduced a proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of employees. EHRC guidance makes clear that this includes risks from third parties such as clients. Workers on solo viewings with unknown members of the public are squarely in that risk profile. Employers must show they assessed the risk and acted, not just that no incident has occurred.
Do small estate agencies — under ten staff — need a formal lone worker policy?
Yes. The duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 applies regardless of headcount. Controls should be proportionate to the risk, but the requirement for a documented risk assessment, written policy, and consistent monitoring process applies to agencies of any size that have staff working alone.
What is the minimum a branch needs in place for lone worker safety?
A written risk assessment for lone viewings, a lone worker policy with a named escalation chain, a check-in and check-out system that detects missed departures automatically, SOS capability, and exportable session records. None of these require expensive hardware or an ARC contract.