How long does family mediation take in the UK

Most family mediation in the UK takes between six weeks and four months from MIAM to a settled agreement, but the range is wide. A simple case with two willing parents and a single issue (handover schedule, school choice) can finish in two sessions over six to eight weeks. A more involved case (finances, property, multiple children, contested points) typically needs three to six sessions across three to four months. The variables are how often the mediator can fit you in (most are booked one to three weeks out), how prepared you both are at each session, and how many issues need separate decisions. Mediation is paced to the slower party; if either of you is not ready to decide, the next session moves out by a fortnight.

We had our MIAM at the start of February and our last mediation session in mid-May. Three and a bit months. I had assumed it would be six weeks. Most of the websites I read before we started talked about mediation as if it was a quick step before "the real process". For us it was the real process. There was no real process after it.

The thing I hadn't budgeted for was the waiting. Each session needs a slot in the mediator's diary, and good mediators are typically booked one to three weeks out. So even a "fast" mediation, where both parties agree quickly, has a built-in floor of about five weeks once you count the MIAM, two working sessions, and the gap between each. If you need more sessions, add a fortnight per session, minimum.

The second thing I hadn't budgeted for was the work between sessions. The mediator would set us each a small task: confirm a number, talk to a pension provider, draft a proposal for the school holidays. The tasks were small. Doing them while still living in the half-separated house, working full time, and trying not to fight in front of the children was less small. By the third session, I had a fuller appreciation for how the pace gets set by the slower person, not by either of you setting a deadline.

In a Solo Session with Meedi around session four, I asked her, half jokingly, whether I should be pushing for faster. We had agreed three of the four major points; the fourth, on the finances, kept hitting a wall. Meedi did not give me a "push faster" answer or a "be patient" answer. She asked me whether the wall was about new information that needed digesting, or about something my ex was not ready to face. I had to think about that for a few days. The honest answer was the second one. Knowing it, I could stop pressing for a session a week and let the gap between sessions be its own form of progress.

We finished in mid-May. The agreement got typed up by the mediator, we both signed it, and a few weeks later we paid a solicitor a small fee to convert it into a consent order so it carried legal weight. The consent-order paperwork felt like a footnote after the mediation itself.

If you are at the start of this, the timeline I would set in your head is: MIAM in the first two weeks (assuming you can get a booking), then plan for three to four mediation sessions across two to three months, with at least a fortnight between each. Have the boring documents ready before session one (last three months of bank statements, pension valuations, mortgage balance, payslips). If you have not done that work, the first session is mostly admin and the clock starts ticking the next time.

A note on cost: the timeline is one of the strongest predictors of total spend. Each session has a fixed price band for both of you, so two extra sessions can add £400-£800 to the total. Being prepared for each session is the cheapest thing you can do.

We are not done with everything. We are done with the formal mediation. The relationship between us has its own timeline, which is much longer than three months, and one that I cannot speed up by being prepared.