How much will mediation cost you?
If you are eligible for Legal Aid many mediators offer free mediation so please read our guide about Legal Aid which you will find in the useful website section supporting this chapter. Also and visit the legal aid online calculator to work out whether you are likely to be eligible www.gov.uk/check-legal-aid
If you are eligible for legal aid for mediation the first pre-mediation 1on1 meeting (MIAM) will be free for you as well as the mediation sessions. Your former partner will also receive their first 1on1 meeting and the first mediation session free of charge courtesy of your legal aid eligibility.
There may also be other funding initiatives on offer at the time so please ask your mediator. For example, at the time of writing this the Government is offering each couple a £500 voucher scheme if they mediate and their mediation involves child arrangements.
If you are not eligible for free mediation, most mediators only charge for time they spend in mediation with you and for providing written summaries in respect of these meetings.
Commonly, unlike solicitors, mediators they do not charge for travel, administrative emails, telephone calls and texts which should keep your costs down. This time can amount to hours of extra work which they do not charge for.
A typical mediation process involves:
A confidential pre-mediation meeting with each of you which is call a MIAM or Intake meeting, costing in the region of £80-150 plus vat per person depending on the region of the country and mediator carrying out the work. Please speak to your mediator about this.
There are usually between 2 and 4 joint mediation sessions of 1.5-2 hours each, depending on your circumstances, costing between £80-150 an hour plus vat for each person.
Typically, the mediator spends around one hour on paperwork after each mediation session. This can of course vary.
The final written summary may take longer, say two or three hours. However, the amount of paperwork will very much depend on your circumstances. The mediator will give you a good idea about this at the end of each joint session.
Therefore, a typical mediation of 3 sessions of 2 hours each plus 4-5 hours paperwork, where both people are paying privately, would cost £900-1300 plus vat each and typically takes place over a period of 3-6 months, tracking the divorce process. This will obviously be less if there are only 2 sessions and less paperwork.
Costs can be kept at this kind of level because mediators generally do not charge for travel, emails, telephone calls, and texts in between mediation sessions, because mediators help you to work together to keep your costs down which can make a huge difference to your level of costs and because you can do as much or as little of the preparation work in between sessions for yourselves using this Divorce Manual.
Added to these fees is the fee of any other expert you may need to use during the course of mediation, such as your solicitor or pension expert.
You can discuss with your mediator when and how to make best use of your solicitor, to support you during mediation. We also cover this in a separate chapter and series of videos called solicitor supported mediation.
You will find a range of Mediation process maps and documents providing far more details about the process and costs as part of the Chapter and video series- Financial agreements in mediation.
Next steps
We hope that this chapter, videos and supporting documents have given you enough information to feel able to make a well-informed decision about whether to mediate or not.
Good luck and on to Part 2 of the Manual.