Family Mediation Costs

General terms:

• Fees for privately paying clients are charged separately, per person.
• Appointment fees are payable 2 full working days in advance of the appointment.
• Summary / documentation fees are due in advance of the mediator starting work on the document/s.
• Our preferred method of payment is bank transfer. Bank details will be texted to you when we confirm your appointment.

Ministry of Justice (MOJ) Voucher Scheme (children matters only):

There is currently help available from the Ministry of Justice for parents negotiating over children’s arrangements.  This comes in the form of a grant of up to £500 per family, to be shared equally between participants.  The grant covers the cost joint mediation sessions, but not assessment meetings or documentation fees.  It is not means tested and is therefore available to everyone.

Mediators make the application for a mediation voucher on behalf of their clients.  However, the application can only take place once both clients have attended an assessment meeting.  The scheme is finite, so please check with your mediator to see if funds are still available.

Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (also known as MIAMs):

• Individual assessment meetings are charged at £120.00 per person.

Joint Mediation Sessions: 

• Mediation sessions are charged at £180.00 per person. This is because sessions are 90 minutes long, at a cost of £120 per hour, per client.
• One child Inclusive session, for the child/children, is offered free of charge as part of our social mission.

Summary / Documentation fees:

Unless otherwise discussed and agreed with you prior to work being undertaken, we charge set fees for these, as follows:

• Mediation summary fees – £150.00 per person, per summary.

  Mediation summaries include the following:
  – Memorandum of Understanding, which is a confidential document to record background information, joint proposals and guiding principals.
  – Open Financial Summary, which records the details of any financial disclosure undertaken in mediation.

• Other mediation document fees – £100.00 per person, per document.
  Other mediation documentation includes the following:
  – Statement of Outcome, which is a confidential document which records joint proposals and guiding principals.
  – Interim Proposal, which is a confidential document to facilitate consultation with your personal advisor/s.
  – Parenting Plan, which records your agreements about the arrangements you have made for your children.

Cancellation fees:

• For the cancellation of sessions without charge, we require 7 full days notice.
• For cancellation with less than 7 days notice we charge 50% of the appointment fee/s.
• For on the day cancellations, we charge the full fee/s.
• Please note that for joint sessions this means the full fees for both The client that has requested cancellation usually pays this.

Additional charges:

We do not routinely charge for telephone calls, letters or other administrative duties outside of meeting times.  However, further fees may be charged if the mediator is required to do considerable work in addition to normal case preparation.  This may include reading reports, extraordinary case preparation or consultation with other professionals outside of session times.  Generally, additional time will be charged by the hour at the same rate as the mediation session fee.  However, we will inform and agree charges with you beforehand.

We do not charge VAT.

Overall mediation cost estimates:

It is difficult to estimate overall costs because this depends on how many sessions it will take to resolve the dispute.  The amount of sessions will be determined by how complex the matters are and how able parties are to focus on the issues and come to joint proposals.  The following estimates provide a guide only:

• Children issues only: 2 sessions of 90 minutes, which would be equal to 3 hours of mediation time. Therefore, overall costs per person might be as follows: assessment meeting (£120), plus 2 sessions (£360), plus an outcome statement, if needed (£100) = £580 per person.
• Child inclusive mediation: 2 sessions of 90 minutes, which would be equal to 3 hours of mediation time, plus one child inclusive session. Therefore, overall costs per person might be as follows: assessment meeting (£120), plus 2 sessions (£360), child inclusive session (free), plus an outcome statement, if needed (£100) = £580 per person.
• Property and finance issues only: 4 sessions of 90 minutes, which would be equal to 6 hours of mediation time. Therefore, overall costs per person might be as follows: assessment meeting (£120), plus 4 sessions (£720), plus an open financial summary (£150), plus a memorandum of understanding (£150) = £1140 per person.
• All issues mediation (children and property/finance): 5 sessions of 90 minutes, which would be equal to 7.5 hours of mediation time. Therefore, overall costs per person might be as follows: assessment meeting (£120), plus 5 sessions (£900), plus an open financial summary (£150), plus a memorandum of understanding (£150) = £1320 per person.