Use private alternative dispute resolution to solve your family dispute
By Richard Pidgeon
If you have a family dispute, we can provide alternative dispute resolution (or ‘ADR’) services to help you resolve the dispute out of court. Our services cover a range of issues, including:
- Elder care (elder mediation)
- Relationship property
- Trusts, wills and estates
- Family and relationship conflict
We offer four main processes: mediation, arbitration, arb-med (each of which requires the consent of all parties to the dispute), and personalised conflict coaching.
Mediation is our most common process and can be used in all these disputes.
Mediation is the most informal process. It is a facilitated discussion with a neutral person who helps those involved identify issues, common ground, and possible solutions. Ideally, this leads to mutual agreement recorded in a settlement agreement. The parties decide the outcome.
Arbitration is more formal and is suitable when the parties need a decision made for them, often after mediation has been tried. Arbitration is loosely summarised as having a private judge, who operates under the Arbitration Act 1996 or our arbitration rules. The arbitrator determines the outcome based on submissions and evidence provided to them.
Within the family space, arbitration is often used to resolve trust or relationship property matters. The advantages of the process were a key driver in Parliament inserting them into its 2019 trusts legislation.
We also offer a hybrid process called arb-med. This begins as arbitration, with directions made by the arbitrator (e.g., on time frames and to obtain information). Then, the arbitration is paused, and the arbitrator mediates the dispute. If the parties do not settle, the process returns to arbitration, and the arbitrator decides the outcome.
We also offer conflict coaching services at the Family Dispute Resolution Centre (FDR Centre). This helps people in conflict communicate effectively. It provides strategies to assist them in approaching the dispute constructively, giving them the best chance of resolving the issues with the other people involved.
