Mediation is a pay as you go service and there are no hidden costs. The majority of clients share the cost of the joint meetings equally or use funds from a joint account.

Individual Meeting – known as a Mediation Information & Assessment Meeting (MIAM)  – £165 per person. Includes signed court form (if needed)

Joint Meetings are charged at £270 per hour for in-person, and £250 per hour for online. Fixed fee packages are available for Co-Parent Mediation only.

Review and preparation of documents between meetings and at the end of mediation (if required) is charged – A fixed fee is agreed with you both first.

Lovegrove Mediation is a private practice and does not offer Legal Aid for mediation. For further information about Legal Aid, you may wish to contact South West Family Mediation Service on 01392 678010. You can check whether you are eligible for Legal Aid, using the eligibility calculator here.

It depends on whether you wish to discuss financial or children matters, or both. There are no fixed number of sessions as the process is flexible.

As a guideline, mediation about financial matters involves at least five sessions (after the individual meetings) as it is necessary to have an exchange of financial information with your former partner or spouse. In a similar way to how matrimonial and divorce solicitors work, there is a duty for each client to provide full and frank financial disclosure in mediation. The mediator will explain the process in more detail in the individual meeting, and provide you with the relevant forms when mediation begins. If you both reach a resolution, then the mediator drafts the outcome documents, which is usually passed onto one or both sets of solicitors.

Separated parents often find it helpful to dedicate session(s) to talk about their children and agree how they will communicate in the future after a recent separation. Sometimes mediation is needed later when the arrangements start well and then a dispute arises, for example when discussing dividing time during festivals or holidays, or when dealing with a change of school or introducing a new partner to the children. It is always possible to come back to mediation. Sometimes parents wish to record the arrangements in a Parenting Plan, which can be drafted by the mediator.

If you do not wish to try mediation and need to make an application to the court about your children or financial matters, the court requires you first to attend a statutory Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting, also known as a MIAM. Kate’s fee is £165 for this meeting.

If mediation has started and broken down, then Kate can also issue a certificate for a financial or child related court application upon request.

Before the first meeting, the Mediator sends a document known as an ‘Agreement to Mediate’, which sets out the terms of mediation.

In the first meeting, you both set the agenda, aims and objectives. Meetings can be used to discuss all or some of the following issues: separation, interim living arrangements whether under the same roof or not, divorce process, money, time spent with the children and the future arrangements. Often the mediator goes through a key financial document known as a Form E in the first meeting. This helps build the individual and joint financial picture during the process.