Becket Chambers Family Mediation offers a mediation service in all areas of family dispute including:

• Children
• Property and Finance
• Divorce
• Co-habitation
• Inheritance and Dependency

Becket Chambers Family Mediation offers a mediation service to assist people with the breakdown of their family relationships. Family Mediation can help couples who are no longer able to live together to work out agreements over their children, financial matters and the family home.  They can work out the terms of a settlement with the help of a mediator, reducing the risk to them both of fighting in court and running up high legal costs.  Separation and divorce need not be a battlefield in which everyone loses - especially the children.

Becket Mediation helps couples to work out arrangements as co-operatively as possible, with the help of trained mediators who are experts in family and divorce law and experienced in negotiating arrangements for children and financial settlements in divorce.  Mediation is different from counselling.  In mediation, couples who have separated or who face separation are helped to work out practical arrangements.  If financial and property matters need sorting out, the mediators help both parties to gather all the financial information and documents that will be needed to reach a settlement.  This can be an interim or permanent settlement, depending on the situation, and can later be formalised through solicitors.

At the end of mediation and sometimes during the process, each party should seek separate legal advice so that any agreement they come to is based on fully informed and carefully considered decisions that take account of each party’s needs and their children’s needs as well.  A lot of time-consuming and costly correspondence between solicitors can be avoided, if the terms of the settlement are worked out in mediation.

What about the cost of mediation?

There is an hourly charge for mediation.  Paying a single mediator to help you work out agreements costs much less than using two solicitors - one on each side - to negotiate or take action on your behalf.

Some people are very anxious about face-to-face discussions with a former partner.  If there are fears about this, the mediators may be able to reassure them about the way discussions are managed to keep a balance and enough control.  In some situations it may be necessary for the mediator to meet with each party separately, but as far as possible couples are encouraged to work things out jointly.  Children are helped enormously when their parents work out arrangements accepted by all concerned.

Many couples who split up do not have dependent children.  Mediation can help them settle financial and property matters connected with their separation or divorce.  These can be written up by the mediator as a basis for a legally binding agreement drawn up by solicitors and leading, if necessary, to a court order made with both parties’ consent.

For further information about this service please contact Paul Eaton, Senior Clerk.