A woman trying to arrange a viewing with a Surbiton estate agent received a smutty email calling her a “tart” and suggesting she might “bend over”.

Zoe Butler, 25, had asked the agent about renting in Surbiton with boyfriend Orrin Duhaney, 21.

KT Residential estate agent Daniel Grove replied offering viewing times at 6pm.

But beneath his message was another one apparently sent from director Daniel Dow’s email address.

The email said: “Boss, want to do a l8 [late] viewing with this tart? She may bend over for you!”

Ms Butler replied: “Do you generally talk about your potential tenants like this?”

Mr Grove said: “Not at all, it was an extremely immature and inappropriate comment made by my colleague on our internal system.

“I sincerely apologise for the comment and assure you that it was made as a baseless and inappropriate attempt at humour regarding my personal life.

“I assure you that the comment does not in any reflect [sic] our business ethic or was intended as any personal reference to yourself.

“I sincerely apologise for any distress this may have cause.”

Contacted on Tuesday night, Mr Dow denied he was the author of the smutty comments.

He said: “As much as I would like to get to the bottom of it, I will have to deny I wrote the email.

“I guess I could have been hacked. It could be someone trying to frame me. There are people out there who might want to tarnish my name.

“I think the best thing to do is apologise if anything has come out that has upset someone.”

Ms Butler, who works for social services and lives in Guildford, said: “When I first read it I was just shocked. I kept thinking ‘Am I reading this right?’ “I’m not very good at contacting people and I plucked up the courage to do it.

“It made me feel very small and upset. It’s so unprofessional of them. How often do they say that about potential tenants?

“They haven’t really apologised – they’ve tried to make out they weren’t talking about me.”