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What about the cost?
Mediation sessions usually last about one and half hours each. If you have to pay privately, you pay the fee to the mediator at his or her normal charging rate at the end of the session for the time spent in the Session and in preparing the documents relating to proposal reached when they are sent to you. Couples can share the cost equally but this is for you to decide.
Publicly Funded Mediation is available for those who are eligible if they decided they want to mediate.
In normal circumstances the Legal Services Commission require a party receiving the benefit of the legal assistance, to pay back to the Commission, at the end of the day the cost of mediation where they have a " gained/preserved property". This is otherwise known as the Statutory Charge.
At the present moment in time where proposals have been reached through mediation the Legal Services Commission have stated that the Statutory Charge will not apply. Therefore there is a cost advantage to those parties who are eligible as they will not have to pay anything back to the Legal Services Commission.
Even in cases where both parties are paying privately for mediation. The overall costs of settling all outstanding issues is often less than each party retaining their own Solicitors and dealing with the separation in the more traditional way.
Each party is assessed for eligibility for mediation separately at the Assessment Meeting.
Assessment Meetings are always conducted on a one to one basis with the Mediator.
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