Family Mediation FAQs

Mediation is a great process for those that agree already. We will work with you both to flesh out your agreement and help you work out the details of your plan together. Mediation allows you to build on your agreement as opposed to dividing you in an adversarial process.

Your agreement is drafted for you in neutral legal language so that it does not benefit either party. When you have a lawyer do the drafting, it is the lawyer's job to benefit their own client, so the language often benefits their client. Then the other person takes the agreement to a lawyer and their lawyer wants to change that language. That starts a back and forth process to try to refine the language. It all takes time and money.

The way we explain it is that we help both of you for 95 percent of the process, and once the drafting is complete, you can each take it to your lawyers for a final review. This allows you to split the cost, saving thousands in legal fees.

Whether you are married or common-law, if you have children or property together, then you need a separation agreement. First, it is a written record of the agreements you make. It ensures that you both understand it in the same way and that all of the details are ironed out. This decreases future disagreements, and it serves as a record of the agreement in case a dispute arises later on.

Second, other professionals will need your agreement to facilitate the various transactions outlined in your financial settlement. Your separation agreement serves as instructions for lawyers, financial advisers, and lenders. A bank will not extend funds or refinance unless there is a signed agreement showing a finalization of the financial matters between you. A financial manager will not split your RRSP funds without a signed separation agreement saying that they can. Learn more about separation agreements in BC.

Pre-mediation meetings let your mediator assess the situation and figure out how to best structure the mediation session. Each of you needs the opportunity to speak candidly about your perspective, and this is really best done in a one-on-one session.

An individual pre-mediation meeting is just part of the process, though. It is a professional obligation that the situation be assessed for mediation in separate pre-mediation meetings. But in almost every case we are able to move ahead from there, and our next session is where we come together.

All three paths follow the same structured process and end with a Separation Agreement drafted by Rebecca Alleyne, senior family lawyer. What differs is the level of support. Divii is self-guided and online at your own pace. Mediation with Isabella is the most affordable fully guided option. Mediation with Rebecca puts legal experience in the room throughout, which suits complex finances or higher conflict.

If you are unsure, book a free 30-minute consultation and we will recommend a path after walking through your situation together.

This is common, and it is one of the reasons the process starts with individual pre-mediation meetings. Each of you can ask questions privately, at no cost with Isabella, before committing to anything. Many hesitant spouses simply want to understand the process and know it is neutral before agreeing to it. If your spouse prefers to start smaller, a shared Divii file lets you both work through decisions at your own pace, without sessions to schedule.

The process is designed to take about four to six weeks from the time you meet in a pre-mediation meeting to the time you have a separation agreement in hand. But this is an estimate: 80 percent of people will fall into this range. Ten percent will be faster, with a simple situation and a low level of conflict. Ten percent will take longer, with a complex situation or high conflict requiring additional sessions.

But really, for 80 percent of people it falls in this time frame. See the full process, step by step.

Our pricing works in flat, per-person stages, and you only ever pay for the stage you are in. Mediation with Isabella starts with complimentary pre-mediation meetings, with half-day mediation at $700 per person. Mediation with Rebecca begins with a $300 pre-mediation meeting, with half-day mediation at $1,200 per person. Agreement drafting is a separate stage, at the same rate on either path because Rebecca drafts every agreement. Each of you pays your own share, so the cost is shared between you. See full pricing for every stage, including the complete journey totals.

In my experience it is much less expensive to use a mediation process, because you are co-creating the plan instead of fighting about it. That in itself is the major difference. When you hire lawyers, you are paying them to get the best outcome for each of you. With that approach, it becomes a tug of war, and that takes a long time and costs a lot of money.

It is also just the logistics of mediation that contribute to its efficiency. In mediation, we book a meeting where everyone has dedicated the time and energy to working out a plan. We sit together, we roll up our sleeves, and we figure it out. We get it done. With two lawyers, proposal letters go back and forth and it feels like there is never actual connection on anything. When I worked as a family lawyer, my assistant used to say, with a resigned tone, "It's like ships passing in the night." And it was! Letters would go back and forth and nothing seemed to ever happen. But the invoices would keep mounting.

At my old firm, I would ask for a retainer of $5,000 just to get the file opened, and most often we would be seeking at least one more retainer before the file was resolved. Mediation is half the cost, at least. Coming together and dedicating the time to work out a plan that works for everyone means it is done in a day. Less time means lower cost.

Online family mediation is a process where a trained family mediator helps separating couples resolve issues such as parenting arrangements, child support, spousal support, and property division through virtual meetings. The process is the same as in-person mediation, but sessions take place online using secure video conferencing. Learn more about online mediation.

Yes. Online family mediation is widely used and accepted in British Columbia and is essentially the same process as an in-person session. During Covid, all mediations were done online, which allowed us to refine a process involving visuals and applications to maximize understanding and sharing during the conversation. Agreements reached through mediation can be formalized into a legally binding separation agreement under the BC Family Law Act.

In our experience, yes. Rebecca has conducted hundreds of online mediations, and during Covid all mediations were held virtually, which provided a clear opportunity to observe how effective the process can be in helping people exchange information, understand the issues, and make informed decisions.

Online mediation can be especially effective when people live far apart, face scheduling challenges, or when emotions are high. Meeting virtually adds a layer of distance that can reduce intimidation and emotional pressure, helping people feel more comfortable speaking openly about sensitive topics.

That comfort often leads to more productive conversations. While online mediation can feel less personal when building a long-term co-parenting relationship, it works very well as a practical venue for decision-making and planning, and is often more efficient than meeting in person.

Yes, being in the same room is not necessary for a successful mediation. Our highest priority is that everyone is emotionally supported and feels relatively calm. If you are flooded with emotion or anxiety, you are not thinking, and if you are not thinking, you are not able to make decisions. The mediation can be structured in a number of different ways.

An online mediation is a great option: we meet in a video conference and have the discussion with that physical distance, which dulls the emotion and conflict and allows for mutual focus on the plan to move ahead.

Sometimes shuttle mediations are a good option, too. This is where each person sits in a different room and the mediator "shuttles" between you to help you reach a plan. These sessions can take a bit longer, because the same discussion essentially happens twice, but when the emotion or conflict is high it works really well to finalize the details of the plan.

There are many other options available as well. We can talk about this in your pre-mediation meeting and determine how to structure the joint session so everyone is well supported.

Mediation offers a structure to the conversation that you are not likely using in your living room. We have a very structured process to get you through the important topics and make the necessary decisions.

The period between deciding to separate and actually having an agreement is a very stressful time. People are often acting and speaking from a place of fear and anger. Mediation provides a supported environment for an open discussion, and that openness allows you to rise above the fear into a zone where you can make decisions.

British Columbians will understand this analogy. You know when you get on a plane in the winter, and after months and months of rain the plane breaks through the clouds and you can see the sun? I always feel surprised that the sun was there the whole time. That is sort of how I think about mediation: for a period of time you are still under the clouds of uncertainty and fear, and the structure of mediation helps you fly past that to find the solutions that were always there.

Well, no, not really. As family law mediators we are able to guide you by discussing the law, telling you what other families do in similar situations, and how the law may be applied in your situation. This is meant to guide you both towards a solution, and we might chime in with this sort of legal information if you cannot agree or are having trouble coming up with options.

But we will not tell you what to do or make any decisions for you. In mediation you make all the plans and decisions, together.

You will know exactly what to prepare, because every mediation follows a published agenda. After your pre-mediation meetings you receive a guided preparation process, direction on gathering documents, and access to a secure document drive for sharing files. See the parenting, financial, and combined agendas.

Yes. Once the mediation is done, Rebecca drafts a legal separation agreement for you, and once that agreement is signed, it is legally binding. It uses neutral legal language and clauses that are commonly used in British Columbia, so your lawyer will be familiar with the structure and wording.

It generally takes about 10 days to draft the agreement after the mediation is complete. Once the invoices are cleared, you receive the agreement, all the documents you provided, and all of the calculations and spreadsheets used in mediation. This way you have a full package of information for your lawyer to give you advice, and it is the same package your spouse takes to their lawyer, so you both get legal advice based on the same information.

Through the mediation process you receive guiding legal information: what the legislation says, the policy behind the law, what other families do, and how the law might apply in your circumstances. But a mediator cannot give you advice about what to do, because a mediator must remain neutral and give you both the same information to help make decisions.

You do not have to get independent legal advice, but we highly recommend that you do. It makes your agreement stronger and more reliable. Taking it to a lawyer means you had all the necessary information to make the decisions outlined in the agreement and you understood what the document said and the impact of your decisions. If you both sign it in front of a lawyer, it is pretty tough to overturn in the future, so you can both move forward with greater peace of mind knowing that things are finalized.

Yes. Support is based on income, and incomes change, so many families come back once a year for an annual support recalculation: you exchange updated financial information, we rerun the calculations, and your support agreement is updated to match. Other terms can be varied by agreement between you, ideally documented with the same care as the original.

In most cases, the separation agreement comes first. The agreement resolves parenting, financial support, and property division. Once those issues are settled and documented, the divorce itself is usually an administrative court process. Read more: separation agreement vs. divorce.

If you have children, the court must be satisfied that appropriate arrangements are in place for parenting and financial support before granting a divorce. A separation agreement is the most common way to demonstrate this. Even when there are no children, resolving support and property issues first often makes the divorce process more efficient and straightforward.

When couples are already in agreement, mediation can be an efficient way to document those decisions in a separation agreement. Once the agreement is signed and in place, so long as it has been a year since the date of separation or you meet one of the other grounds for divorce, the divorce application is typically uncontested and can proceed smoothly.

You may apply for divorce on three main grounds: you have been separated for one year or longer, physical or mental cruelty, or adultery.

It is by far most common to apply on the first ground of having lived separately for a year or more. Although you do not have to wait one year to apply where there has been adultery or cruelty, doing so is overall a longer, more expensive, and more emotionally exhausting process, because it generally requires a court trial to prove either ground.

When children are involved, the court requires confirmation that parenting arrangements and child support meet legal requirements. A separation agreement sets out those arrangements and provides the court with the assurance it needs to grant the divorce.