Mediators UK Settles In Less Than 3 Hours

Mediators UK, we are being used more and more, as the clear demand for our mediation services and capabilities are being recognised much more than ever before.

One of our mediators helped the parties in a property dispute resolve their six year dispute within two and a half hours! Saving both parties at least another £13,000 – £15,000 each of taking their dispute all the way to trial, never mind the extra saving of time and stress.

The Facts.

The facts of the dispute are as follows, the claimant builder did a renovation on the defendants property with a value of around £60,000, the defendant also happened to be a family member, the contract of works was to last a period of months, but took around two years.

On completion of the works the claimant advised he was owed a further £16,000 for extra work undertaken, to which the defendant claimed he owed nothing and in fact a lot of the work was incomplete and not to a satisfactory level, and took way longer than it should have! And he was the one who was owed something.

Discussions took place, with little success eventually the claimant issued proceedings, again sometime passed before the parties agreed to enter into mediation, which was arranged within a few weeks.

Mediators UK. 

As the mediator in attendance, I initially thought I was going to have a very difficult task on my hands, as the defendant initially refused to pay anything. The claimant made it clear although there was some flexibility on his claim, he was not going to go a penny less than £X, ‘if he doesn’t pay £X, then we will have to go to court’.

The Mediation Process. 

Having made it clear to the parties what this had already cost them in terms of time, effort, stress, their pre existing relationship and indeed money, magically and thankfully for me that seemed to open up a channel of communication which I quickly took advantage of!

The tipping point was going into detail and making it clear what the litigation risk was, based upon the facts and the evidence both parties were purporting to put forward, equally with the help of their respective lawyers we made it clear what further costs each party was facing, just to get to trial, never mind win or lose.

Having done so I led the parties to a solution within two and half hours, a satisfactory result and a personal best for me!

Mediators UK Reflection. 

As much as I love to see the satisfaction and relief from parties once they have settled, it pains me enormously that they take so long to enter into mediation, both of these parties had wasted six years of their life fighting this, upsetting one another and other family members and had both spent in total £13,000 combined on legal fees to get to mediation.

What could they have done with that £13,000 and those six years? I guess we shall never know, however, at least I stopped them from wasting any more time and money.

Read the reference from one of the instructing solicitors, Geoffrey T. Smith & Co Solicitors of Wolverhampton let them convince you why Effective Dispute Solutions should be your first choice when considering a mediation company and indeed Harvinder Singh Bhurji as your choice of mediators UK!