By Ali Carter Mediation, 20th April 2020.
When you go to an MIAM meeting, you have to at least think about Family Mediation. There is a meeting called an MIAM that gives information about mediation and helps people figure out what they need to do. When you meet with an accredited family mediator, they will explain what mediation is all about and see if your case is good enough for mediation. More info at https://ammediators.co.uk/
If you go to court and the judge thinks that you’d be better off talking about your problems at a mediation meeting, they can put your case on hold so that you can go back and try to solve your problems through mediation.
MIAM meeting with mediation
Every now and then, I need to get an MIAM.
When you want to send a C100 Form to the court to deal with parenting issues, or a Form A to the court to deal with financial issues on your divorce or separation, you need an MIAM.
People in the courts, the Ministry of Justice, and most lawyers think that a mediation meeting is the best way to solve problems about your money or parenting arrangements.
Family mediation has a lot of benefits:
- It is a lot faster to come to an agreement this way than by going to court.
- It is a lot cheaper than hiring a lawyer to negotiate for you or going to court with a lawyer on your side.
- It is less stressful and a lot more pleasant to solve problems this way.
- You can’t use family mediation in every situation, and there are now 15 reasons why you can’t go through with it. Here, we show you how each of these exemptions is different.
Find out how Mediation AM Mediators can help you with your parenting or financial dispute, a divorce, separation, or legal help by getting in touch with us today!
1) Domestic abuse is one of the 15 MIAM Certificate Exemptions
Do not go to family mediation if you have been abused at home. But you do need to show the court proof of the abuse when you apply for a court order. You will need to show that the other person was arrested for a domestic violence offence or show details of any criminal proceedings that they have been through. In the case that you don’t have this, you’ll need to show that domestic abuse has happened in writing from a doctor, a domestic abuse organisation, or another professional body, like the police.
2) One of you lives somewhere else.
Do not go to an MIAM meeting if you live outside of England or Wales and the Respondent lives there most of the time. This would make it hard for you to be there in person, so the court doesn’t expect you to go to mediation. Even though Online Mediation has been around for a while, this may change in the near term.
3) You don’t know where the other person lives.
MIAMs are not necessary if you don’t know where they live and have taken reasonable steps to find out. You don’t need one if that is the case.
4) You have been to an MIAM before.
If you’ve already been to an MIAM in the last four months, you don’t need to go to another one. There must be a date on the MIAM certificate that is at least 4 months old. If this date is not on the certificate, you will need to go to another MIAM meeting. You might want to think about a fast-track Court MIAM in these kinds of situations.
5) There is already a linked case in court.
If there is already a court case going on and you are submitting a new or supplementary application, you don’t need to go to a new MIAM meeting. You should tell the court about the case. But keep in mind that the process must be going on, not finished. Even if it’s about the same people, previous court appearances don’t count, even if they were for the same people.
6) You need a hearing right away.
When it comes to urgency here, the court will decide. Most things that happen to kids are important, especially to their parents. But these situations usually involve a risk of death or serious harm to the child. It can also be used if the child is going to be taken from the country illegally. If there is a very important problem with your child, you should get help from a lawyer.
7) Concerns about child safety
In this case, you don’t need to go to an MIAM before you send in a C100 form. For example, if the child in question has been taken into police protection, you don’t need to go.
8) If the hearing is to be held without notice.
This, too, would usually be about the safety of the people who were in it. Practice Direction 18A says that if this is true, a court would usually decide.
9) Because you have a disability that can’t be fixed, you can’t come.
A disability might make it hard for you to get to a family mediator in your area. As long as you’ve tried all of them, or at least three if there are many, you don’t need to go to an MIAM meeting. There must be proof that you tried. You will also need to think about whether you can go to an Online MIAM or even have your MIAM over the phone in certain situations, like when Covid was shut down.
10) There is a chance that you or the other person is in prison or has bail conditions.
As long as you or the other person is in prison, mediation will not be able to happen. You don’t have to go to an MIAM appointment. You can ask for permission to mediate even if there are bail conditions or terms of your licence that say you can’t talk to the other person. This is also why an MIAM exemption would be OK.
11) If you or the person who answered is a child, this means that this is the case.
There can be no mediation if you or the other party are under 18. You don’t have to go to an MIAM, and you can go straight to court if you want.
12) In this case, you don’t have a mediator in the area where you live.
Do not go to mediation if you can show that there is not a family mediator in 15 miles of where you live. You should think about Online Mediation or having an Online MIAM in these situations.
13) Is there an MIAM meeting I can go to?
All the mediators in your area, or at least three if there are more than three, have told you that they can’t hold an MIAM meeting in 15 working days (3 weeks). If you don’t have the MIAM certificate, you don’t have to wait and can send your C100 form to court without it. Most businesses now can fit in meetings in this time frame, especially if they offer MIAMs or Family Mediation Online.
A Consent Order is coming from you.
In this case, you don’t need to go to an MIAM because you and your partner have already agreed to the terms of a Financial Order or a Child Arrangements Order, and you don’t need to mediate because the two of you have already agreed.
There is a good chance that either you or the person you’re filing for a financial order are or are going to be bankrupt.
This makes things a lot more complicated because the person who is bankrupt doesn’t have direct control or ownership of their money. There would be no need for an MIAM in these situations, so you don’t need one. If this is the case during your divorce or separation, you should get help right away.
