Name: Burn and Company - York, North Yorkshire Family Solicitors

Description: Mediation does not aim to save the relationship but instead seeks to reduce bitterness and help the parties reach an amicable agreement rather than reverting to the Courts for assistance with the consequences of the relationships breakdown.

In family mediation the assistance of one or two impartial and independent mediators is enlisted who have no authority to make any decisions for a couple but use certain skills to help them to resolve issues of dispute. Information but not advice can be given to a couple and this is simply one of the ways we can work with the mediation service providers and provide the relevant advice to complement the negotiations taking place through mediation.

Both your former partner and yourself will be initially offered separate appointments with a mediator who will use such meetings to decide whether or not mediation would be useful and could be used to resolve the arrangements following the breakdown of your relationship. If this is the case, a further meeting will then be arranged for your former partner and yourself to attend together.

Please note that children are not directly involved in mediation but if there are issues where it is important for their views and feelings to be heard, a separate appointment can also be arranged with your children. Both parents will however have to agree that such a meeting would be helpful.

Mediation has become more important recently as not only will it be the first consideration made by a Court if asked to resolve issues of dispute concerning your children but, even if you are financially eligible for Public Funding (formerly Legal Aid) to take such Court proceedings you will not receive such Funding until you have attended at least one appointment with a mediator to consider whether your dispute could not be better resolved by way of mediation. Only in rare circumstances such as where there has been domestic violence between your former partner and yourself will Public Funding (subject to financial and merit eligibility) be awarded without the need for this initial mediation appointment.

Legislation in the form of the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 came into force on the 1st December 2000. This enables parties to benefit from pension sharing on divorce. The Courts have appreciated for a number of years the potential importance of pensions upon divorce.

A pension might well be regarded as a relevant resource of one of the parties to be taken into account upon redistribution of the matrimonial assets. In the past the Court have adopted a number of methods to deal with pensions including offsetting the value of any future pension against current assets and earmarking pension schemes known as Pension Attachment. An Attachment Order is an order is an order directed to the trustees or managers of a pension fund requiring them to pay to a spouse who is not the original pension fund member monies which would normally have gone to that member.

Pension sharing is an additional and potentially significant way of redistributing pension benefits which is available only to individuals who begin proceedings for divorce or nullity after the new legislation came into effect. In short, a pension sharing order enables the spouse without the pension benefits to obtain a share of his or her spouse's pension. This share then becomes a fund for the benefit of the recipient which can be added to as their own.

However, it must not be expected that pension sharing will be appropriate in all cases and it will be only one of a number of options open to the Court. Offsetting or earmarking may still be more appropriate and when there is a pension sharing order it may not be 50:50. It could be 10% or 90% depending upon individual family circumstances.

Category: North Yorkshire

Url: http://www.burn-company.co.uk/

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