Cancellation policy

To ensure that we can offer appointments to all those who wish to use our services as efficiently as possible, it is really important that when an appointment is made to see one of our mediators that it is kept unless there is a very important reason not to.

We appreciate that it is not always possible to keep a meeting date and of course for emergency situations then this is understandable, however, if you cancel your appointment without a suitable reason with less than 48 hours’ notice (excluding weekends) we reserve the right to charge a cancellation fee.

This also applies to us having to cancel/end a meeting early if you are in breach of the Agreement to Mediate, for example if you allowed anyone else to be in the mediation (on or off camera) without prior agreement from the mediator and the other party.

Whilst we would always prefer not to charge cancellation fees we have put this policy in place so that we can be as fair as possible to all of our clients.

Please see the table below for the short notice cancellation charges that we apply.

	Less than 48 hours	Less than 24 hours or No Show
MIAM	Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM)	£75 (half fee)	£150 (full fee)
Mediations	£150	£150

Where you have money on account with us this fee will be taken from the available funds. For the purpose of clarity, at the mediation stage, if one client cancels at short notice then these charges will apply to the client that cancelled, if it is joint decision to cancel the appointment then this fee will be shared.

If you cancel with short notice but wish to re-book a session with us we will apply the charge and will only make the further booking once this has been paid in full.

For legal aid clients who receive our service free of charge we are contractually unable to charge a cancellation fee. However, we cannot accept last minute cancellations from any of our clients as this makes our service difficult to operate efficiently. If you do cancel your appointment with us at short notice (within 48 hours) and are in receipt of legal aid we will offer you one further appointment only before we will refuse any further bookings.

By agreeing to meet with us you accept the application of this cancellation policy in relation to all of the services that we offer.

This policy is at the discretion of Mediation First.

For any queries on this policy please contact our Mediation Support Team on 0330 320 7600 or email office@mediationfirst.co.uk.