Family Mediation Services

Family mediation services were required between two brothers. Slipping into fifth gear, and hitting 70 mph, I headed up the M40 towards Royal Leamington Spa, wondering what todays mediation would bring, it played on my mind for a while, until I fell into my regular daydream of becoming a rich celebrity mediator.

I arrived and was greeted by an efficient receptionist who showed me the rooms that had been allocated; the case itself concerned an alleged breach of contract arising out of a house extension that had not been completed by the defendant building company, as per the contract that had been entered into.

The claim was for £94,000.00, the problem was the claimant and the defendant were brothers. The opening joint session consisted of hostility coupled with mumbling in Punjabi which I will leave to the readers imagination and would not care to translate, I now realize this was not going to be one of my smoother mediations.

Several points were made, counter arguments and questions and further arguments followed, twice I had to stop the parties including their representatives for interrupting the other, and making comments which were not assisting the process.

Ensuring that we had foundations to build our house upon and reaffirming what the purpose of today was, I made it clear that any more outbursts would possibly lead to me terminating the mediation; we had order once more, good time to start the private sessions.

The first private session was held with the claimant, his wife, mother and solicitor, the key contention was the defendant had forced his services upon them; they were all ready to go with a reputable builder, whereby the defendant offered his services cheaper, with the added guarantee for life trust me; I am not an outsider I am your older brother.

The interesting thing with Asian families is this hold that we have over one another; the ethos of Izzart (respect) for ones elders, protocol dictates that you should not question them, even though they may be inherently wrong, this is why the claimant did not raise as many issues with the defendant on site, as he would have done had they not been related.

Things had gone seriously wrong, other family members had become involved, sides had been taken, old grudges and debts had resurfaced, he still owes me 80,000 Rs (£1,000) from 1962 when he came over from the Punjab, shouted the defendant in our first private session.

Lunch came and went, and several private sessions later we were appearing to make head way, both parties cautiously started to negotiate under the guidance of their representatives, the defendant made it quite clear he admitted no liability or foul play but wanted an easy life, and wanted the family members that he had been ostracised by to know he was willing to resolve this, and had not in fact ripped off his younger brother.