Mediation is designed to prevent the need for court

 I read a very interesting article in The Law Society Gazette, which focused on mediation and the results of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) recent call for evidence.

The thing that stuck out like a sore thumb to me was ‘high proportion’ of respondents who were not aware of a dispute resolution processes and cited a lack of publicly available information on this.

I have to agree, in my chosen area of mediation, Landlord and tenant, it does still surprise me how many landlords and tenants do not know that mediation is even available in this specific field and how greatly that service can resolve issues such as rent arrears without the cost of going to court.

Mediation was viewed by many as a token step along the inevitable road to court.

Mediation is designed to prevent the need for court and the only people I know that would want to prevent that is solicitors, because with an early resolution, their payday is much less.

Now I do see many solicitors train to be mediators and do the job well, however, I do hear stories from people who have had a solicitor mediate, that the session itself was biased and the solicitor was still looking for a party to win.

Is mediation about winning?

I believe it is, but I see the outcome as Win Win, both the landlord and the tenant get an outcome that they are happy with and 9 times out of 10 it avoids court.

If you ask anyone that has gone through the tireless stages of court proceedings, they will tell you they wish they would have reached a settlement using another method

Is it really neutral?

I would say yes a majority of the time, I certainly find mediators with no legal background make better mediators than those who do, why? Because the law teaches us to see right and wrong and focuses our mind on having a good guy and a bad guy.

Mediation is not about the law, it is about what is best for the 2 people in the room at that moment.

Yes of course the mediator has to make sure that what is being agreed is legal, but at the same time it doesn’t have to follow the letter of the law.

For example, legally the landlord can pursue a tenant to court to recover all rent owed, at mediation, the landlord has the option to reduce the arrears in order to get a swift move out or offer a financial incentive to the tenant. These options are available in court 

I do think mediation has a huge part to play in the private rented sector and I do believe it gets better outcomes than the court process alone.

Personally I would like to see more eviction specialist companies understand the value of mediation for their clients and that an early resolution, may actually see them increase business flow as they do provide the value of alternative dispute resolution.

As a mediator working within the private rented sector I have helped hundreds of landlords and tenants resolve rent arrears, avoid costly and lengthy evictions and help both parties move on from what can be an emotionally draining situation