Working under a brokerage doesn’t make a client’s claim the brokerage’s problem alone. The individual registrant can be named too.
Short answer
Yes. A client or counterparty can sue the individual agent personally for things like negligence, misrepresentation, or a breach of the duties owed to them — the brokerage being named as well does not remove the agent from the claim. That is precisely why Ontario requires every registrant to carry professional-liability (E&O) insurance in their own name.
Treadstone Law’s guide to breach-of-contract damages explains the default remedy: compensatory damages designed to put the claimant “in the position they would have occupied had the contract been performed.” Courts measure this either as expectation damages (the benefit of the bargain the client expected) or, where profit can’t be proven, reliance damages (wasted expenditure). Aggravated and punitive damages exist but are explicitly “the exception, not the rule” — Ontario contract law is built on compensating the injured party, not punishing the other side.
The clock itself runs on discoverability, not on the date of the deal. Ontario’s Limitations Act, 2002 sets a basic two-year period, but the clock starts on the day the claimant knew — or reasonably should have known — that a loss occurred, who caused it, and that a court claim was an appropriate remedy. A problem that only surfaces well after closing can still be well inside the limitation period. A fifteen-year ultimate limitation acts as the outer wall regardless of when the problem was discovered.
Ontario’s mandatory Errors & Omissions coverage responds at $2,000,000 per claim and $4,000,000 in aggregate, and it explicitly covers things like “forgetting a key clause in the APS,” a tax-related error, or “groundless accusations” — meaning defence costs are covered even against a claim that ultimately fails, per RECO’s own coverage summary. Registration in Ontario requires carrying it. What it does not clearly cover — fines, penalties, or intentional misconduct — could not be confirmed from the fetched RECO page and should not be assumed either way.
The other side of personal exposure is professional discipline rather than a lawsuit — see can a private post get you disciplined.
A 30-minute call on where AI reduces the errors that turn into claims.
