Separation & Divorce FAQs

Yes, you need a written agreement for family law issues in order for the agreement to be valid and enforceable. A verbal agreement in family law is not legally binding.

The short answer is 'no'. Watch our video: DIY Separation Agreements: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?

It is risky to write your own Separation Agreement (or to use a generic kit, Sample Separation Agreement, or Template Separation Agreement to prepare an agreement) as chances are high that you may leave out an important detail or you may use words that have a different legal meaning than what you intend. If your agreement turns out to be problematic, it can be very expensive and sometimes impossible to correct your error.

Furthermore, if you need bank financing to take over your family home or to purchase a new home, you should know that most banks will not approve your financing on the basis of a home-made Separation Agreement.

Lastly, a Notary Public is not allowed to witness family law agreements.

In your Separation Agreement, we are able to address all of the issues arising out of your separation that are relevant and important to you, including:

• Determination of family property and debt
• Division of family property and debt (for example, documenting the details of one of you buying the family home from the other so that you can get bank re-financing approved)
• Parenting arrangements and parenting time (formerly referred to as custody and access)
• Child support
• Special and extraordinary expenses for your children (such as daycare expenses, extra-curricular activities, medical expenses, etc.)
• Spousal support (also known as alimony)
• Decision-making and communication guidelines
• Interim arrangements, such as use of the family home, management of household expenses, and support, pending the final transfer or sale of the family home
• Other details specific to your family

Usually, your children will continue to be cared for by both of you throughout the process as they were during your relationship. One of the things we will work through together is a new parenting plan that addresses where the children will live, how parenting time will be shared, how decisions will be made, and how you will communicate as co-parents going forward.

In the meantime, we encourage both parents to maintain as much stability and routine as possible for the children and to keep adult conversations about the separation away from them. If you need guidance on how to talk to your children about the separation, our resources section and reading list have some excellent tools.

It depends on what you want to change. Some parts of a Separation Agreement, particularly those dealing with property and debt division, are generally intended to be final once signed. Other parts, particularly those dealing with care of children and support, can be changed if the children's needs have changed and/or if there's been a change in income that would require a change in support.

However, if you and your former spouse both agree, you are able to change any of the details. We can help you document the variation in a written amendment to your agreement. If you do not agree, you would need to speak to a lawyer and the matter may need to be addressed in court.

This is one of the reasons that it is very important to get the agreement right in the first place, which is exactly what our process is designed to help you do.

Online family mediation is an incredibly flexible, comfortable, and time-saving process. Some of the benefits of divorce e-mediation for you are:

• increase in scheduling flexibility and convenience
• ability to manage family law matters in the comfort & privacy of your own space
• increase in efficiency & speed of resolution
• decrease of emotional triggers, like body language, facial expressions
• increase in feeling of safety
• lower overhead & lower cost than office-based services

We find that through e-mediation many clients are better able to focus on the business of their separation without getting bogged down in the emotional issues that can arise when meeting in the same physical space. We meet with user-friendly technology that is free for our clients. You can access the video chat 'meeting room' from your phone, tablet or computer through a link that we will provide to you by email. Watch our short video on the 7 Reasons We Love E-Mediation.

This is a stressful time and it can be difficult to figure out the right thing to do. We've created a short Questionnaire to help you decide if mediation is appropriate for you.

This is an important question and we take it seriously. Mediation is not appropriate in every situation, and the safety and well-being of both participants is our first priority. We assess each situation individually during the Pre-Mediation Initial Consultation process, which is why we are required by our professional regulations to meet with each spouse separately and privately before proceeding.

In some cases, we are able to put safeguards in place that allow mediation to proceed safely and productively. In other cases, where the power imbalance or history of violence is such that a fair and safe process is not possible, we will let you know and help point you toward more appropriate resources. If you have concerns about this, please raise them during your confidential Pre-Mediation Initial Consultation.

No, not at all. The purpose of the Initial Consultation for Family Mediation is for you to get to know the divorce mediator, to understand the divorce mediation process, and to confidentially provide any information that you feel will help the divorce mediator successfully guide the family mediation process for you. The Initial Consultation is also an opportunity for the mediator to ensure that the family mediation will be a safe and appropriate process for your family situation before you get started. You will only proceed to mediation if you and your spouse both agree to do so after you have each had your own private and confidential Initial Consultation.

We encourage you to let us know what will help you through the process. Meetings will be based on your preference of video chat or phone. We can take breaks as needed during your meetings if you are feeling emotional. However, if you decide that the process is not right for you, you are free to discontinue your participation at any time.

Of course! We have worked with many queer couples. This is a safe space.

Yes, absolutely. We work with couples at all stages: from nothing having been agreed upon to having a detailed, verbal agreement that needs to be properly documented. Most couples who come to us have some things figured out and other things they are still working through. You do not need to have reached agreement before you start. Your mediator will help you have productive conversations about the issues that remain unresolved, understand your options under British Columbia law, and work toward an agreement that is fair and workable for both of you.

We serve all of British Columbia. Because our process is entirely online, there is no need to travel to an office and geography is not a barrier. We regularly work with couples in Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Burnaby, Kelowna, Kamloops, Nanaimo, Abbotsford, Prince George, and smaller and more remote communities throughout the province.

No. We work with both married couples, common law couples, and couples who don't meet the definition of common law but have a child or property together. Our process works the same way regardless of your marital status.

Yes! Family mediation allows you to meet together with one family mediator and avoid the often time-consuming back-and-forth between lawyers. The process is cooperative and therefore generally proceeds much faster than the traditional adversarial legal process.

This will depend on the complexity of your circumstances and how far along you are in your discussions, and these factors will determine which of our flat fee/fixed timeline packages you need. The vast majority of couples who work with us on a Separation Agreement are able to reach the terms of agreement within our process timelines: Quick Package (1 week), Standard Package (4 weeks); Plus Package (8 weeks).

You can start gathering your financial information. You don't need to have all of the documents ready before starting family mediation but it can save you some time during the process if you are fairly organized. We've prepared a Financial Disclosure Checklist to help you get organized.

Please note that you are NOT required to have these documents gathered before your Initial Consultation.

We work with spouses who both voluntarily choose to participate in our process. If your spouse is not willing to participate, we are not able to proceed with the mediation process. In that situation, you would need to explore other options for resolving your separation, such as negotiating directly through lawyers or, if necessary, through the courts.

That said, it is worth having a conversation with your spouse about what mediation actually involves before assuming they will refuse. Many people are hesitant at first because they don't fully understand the process or have misconceptions about what mediation requires of them.

Our Pre-Mediation Initial Consultation is a low-commitment first step that sometimes helps a reluctant spouse become more comfortable with the idea. We see this scenario quite often: one spouse has a Pre-Mediation Initial Consultation, reports back to their spouse about their impressions of our service, and then the other spouse becomes open-minded enough to give us a shot. There is no obligation to continue beyond the Pre-Mediation Initial Consultation so this helps many people feel comfortable enough to find out what we're about.

We have found that our clients enjoy the certainty of a flat fee (rather than the unknown of the billable hour). In order to make the flat fee process financially viable for our small business, we have to create an end-point to the usage of our services.

In addition, we have found that having a time-limited process 1) helps clients focus on the issues (which may be uncomfortable and tempting to delay), 2) encourages clients to focus on their most important needs and wishes; and 3) discourages clients from getting bogged down in small issues (which could otherwise result in endless argument).

Our Flat Fee Packages are designed to help clients move on with life.

In most cases, no, it wouldn't.

If you are price shopping, it is important to note that a lawyer practicing in the traditional law firm model will usually quote a "starting from" rate that is an estimate based on their hourly rate. This quote is for the first draft before it has been sent to your spouse or their lawyer.

A lawyer (who is not a mediator) can only work for one of you, not both of you, so the lawyer will draft the agreement to favour the lawyer's client. This is because lawyers have stringent professional responsibilities to protect their client and not doing so fully could be considered negligent.

The draft agreement will then be sent to the other spouse who will need to hire their own lawyer to review the terms. As it was drafted for the other person's benefit, this is where the adversarial back-and-forth gets started, the hourly billing ramps up, and the "starting from" fee often becomes a drop in the bucket of the total cost.

Through our process, we meet with both spouses together which means that we can iron out any misunderstandings together as we go and fully discuss all of the issues that you wish to be addressed in the agreement. There won't be any surprise terms added to protect just one person. As a result of working with a neutral family law mediator, our clients are far less likely to get caught up in ongoing negotiation struggles.

Lastly, the flat fee provides many people with peace of mind because they do not have to worry about how high the fees might get. There is no need to add the stress of hourly billing to an already stressful time.

Only a mediator who is also a lawyer can draft a Separation Agreement because it is a legally-binding contract (and non-lawyers are obviously not allowed to practice law).

Mediators who are not also lawyers are limited to preparing a Memorandum of Understanding after mediation because it is not a legally-binding document. It is simply a summary of the terms that were tentatively agreed upon in mediation.

When you leave mediation with a Memorandum of Understanding, you will have the extra step and expense of taking the Memorandum of Understanding to a lawyer to have a Separation Agreement prepared if you would like the document to be legally-binding -- which is the entire purpose of having an agreement in writing for most people!

Some mediators who are lawyers offer a Memorandum of Understanding as part of their initial mediation fee and then charge extra fees for preparing a legally-binding Separation Agreement.

We know that you need a legally-binding document to do the things that you are trying to do, for example, divide your pension, get approved for financing to complete your house buyout, have peace of mind that support will be paid, etc., so we build in the preparation of the Separation Agreement into all of our packages.

The vast majority of our clients complete a signed Separation Agreement within our process.

Of course, divorce mediation is a human process and we cannot guarantee success as it is greatly dependent on the approach of the particular individuals involved.

This is such an important question! Listen to our podcast episode on Mindset and the Culture of Divorce for some great tips. Please note: the episode was recorded in 2017 so when Christina says that she started the mediation firm "a year ago" that refers to 2016. We have now successfully helped hundreds of couples transition through separation in a healthy and efficient way. It's what we do.

You may also find Christina's book Pathways to Amicable Divorce: Directions for the Beginning of Separation a helpful resource.