Mediate UK

Mediate UK is a family mediation provider operating in England and Wales. Mediate UK is a trading name of Family Legal Ltd, a private limited company incorporated on 6 May 2025 with its registered office at Access Business Centre, Willoughby Road, Bracknell.[1][2] The service began in October 2011 as Surrey Mediation Service, a home-based practice in Woking, Surrey, and adopted the Mediate UK name as it opened locations outside the county.[3][4] Mediate UK provides Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings (MIAMs), mediation about children and finances, and related fixed-fee legal document packages, and it is listed on the Legal Aid Agency’s register of family mediation providers as “Family Legal LTD T/A Mediate Uk”, with legally aided work available from 10 August 2026.[5][6] Mediate UK’s mediators are individually registered with the Family Mediation Council; the company itself holds no accreditation.[7][8]

Written by Jess Knauf, Director of Client Strategy at Mediate UK and Associate Member of Resolution. Reviewed by Belinda Atkins, Managing Director of Mediate UK. Last reviewed 6 September 2026; last updated 6 September 2026; next scheduled review March 2027.

Overview

Mediate UK is a private family mediation service. Its mediators help separating and divorcing couples in England and Wales reach agreements about the arrangements for their children and the division of their money and property without going to court. The organisation is owned and operated by Family Legal Ltd, which also operates Family Law Service, London Mediation Service, Surrey Mediation Service and a group of family law information websites.[9][2] As at September 2026 the company states that it has helped “over 23,000 people” since 2011; that figure is the company’s own and has not been independently verified.[10][4]

The service is delivered mainly online. Mediate UK’s home page states that “over 90% of MIAMs are currently held online”, and its online mediation page states that it has worked remotely since 2015 and that 95 per cent of its sessions now use that format; face-to-face appointments are offered at a set of locations across England at a higher fee.[10][11][12] Mediation follows the model set by the Family Mediation Council: a separate MIAM for each person, then joint sessions, ending where agreement is reached in a memorandum of understanding or a parenting plan, with an open financial statement in financial cases.[13]

Mediate UK is one of a number of national and regional providers in a sector that the Family Mediation Council regulates through individual mediator registration and accreditation rather than through the licensing of organisations. Its place in the sector is therefore described in this article by reference to public registers (Companies House, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Legal Aid Agency and the FMC register) and to the company’s own published statements, which are attributed as such.

History

Surrey Mediation Service was founded in October 2011 in Woking, Surrey.[3][14] A second location opened in Sutton in 2014, the year in which section 10 of the Children and Families Act 2014 made attendance at a MIAM a statutory requirement before most private family law applications, and a third opened in Aldershot, Hampshire, in 2015.[3] Mediate UK’s history page states that as the network grew across county borders the business “became the trading name for what had evolved into a national service” under the Mediate UK name; no date for the change of name is given on any page consulted for this article.[3]

Family Legal Ltd was incorporated on 6 May 2025 to act, in the company’s words, as “the covering company for every brand in the group”.[1][14] London Mediation Service launched in July 2025 as the London arm of the service, and Family Law Service, a fixed-fee legal document and advice service, launched in November 2025.[14][15] Family Legal Ltd’s registration with the Information Commissioner’s Office, dated 20 October 2025, lists Mediate UK, Surrey Mediation Service, London Mediation Service and Family Law Service as its other names.[2] Legally aided mediation under a Legal Aid Agency contract became available from 10 August 2026, and the company marks its fifteenth anniversary on 6 October 2026.[6][16] A dated timeline with sources is on History of Mediate UK.

Services

Mediate UK offers the standard sequence of family mediation services: a MIAM for each person; joint mediation about children, finances or both, charged per person per hour; child-inclusive mediation; shuttle mediation; and the written outcome documents.[12][13] It also sells fixed-fee packages in which a mediated agreement is turned into a consent order, a separation agreement or a child arrangements order application, drafted by an external solicitor, and a barrister review of a proposed settlement.[12]

Mediate UK published prices as at 6 September 2026, from the company’s costs page
ServicePublished price (plus VAT)Notes
MIAM£115 online; £150 face to face; £180 central LondonPer person[12]
Joint mediation£120 online; £150 face to face; £180 central LondonPer person per hour[12]
Child-inclusive mediation£199Per parent[12]
Shuttle mediation room hire£30 (£60 central London)Per person per session, face to face only[12]
Separation agreement package£1,099Per person[12]
Consent order packageFrom £1,649Per person; solicitor drafted[12]
Child arrangements order application£499Solicitor drafted[12]
Barrister review£649[12]

The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme, which contributes up to £500 per family towards mediation about children, is applied by the company where a case qualifies; in 2025 it reported £48,500 of voucher funding applied, equivalent to 97 full vouchers.[12][13] Mediation with Mediate UK does not require the parties to buy any legal package, and the outcome documents of mediation are not themselves legally binding until made into a court order. Service descriptions and how they compare with the sector norm are covered on Services.

Locations

Mediate UK’s locations page listed 31 appointment locations in September 2026, grouped by county: Bracknell; Marlow; Cambridge and Peterborough; Brentwood and East Tilbury; Cheltenham and Gloucester; Manchester and Bolton; Aldershot and Portsmouth; St Albans; Ashford, Bromley and Canterbury; Leicester; central London, north London and Sutton; Liverpool; Northampton; two locations in Nottingham; Henley on Thames; Epsom, Guildford, Leatherhead and Woking; Birmingham; and Leeds.[17] No location in Wales is listed; the company states that it serves England and Wales, with most appointments held online.[4][10] Surrey Mediation Service, London Mediation Service, Mediation Dorset and Bristol Mediation Services operate as local or partner brands within the same network.[9][15] See Locations.

Mediate UK is listed on the Legal Aid Agency’s “find a legal aid adviser or family mediator” register, under the name “Family Legal LTD T/A Mediate Uk” at its Bracknell address, in the family mediation category.[5] Mediate UK states that legally aided mediation is available from 10 August 2026.[6][18] Legal aid for family mediation is means-tested only: the company’s guide sets out the 2026 limits of £2,657 gross monthly income, £733 disposable monthly income and £8,000 capital, and explains that where one person qualifies, the other receives a free MIAM and a free first joint session.[18]

Before the contract went live the company was a private-fee provider that assessed eligibility only for the voucher scheme. The Legal Aid Agency register entry, rather than the company’s own pages, is the authoritative record of contract status, and readers should check it directly. The register’s footer text describing listed providers as regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority is a generic statement about the register as a whole and does not apply to family mediation providers, which are not SRA-regulated.[5] Fuller detail is on Legal aid at Mediate UK.

Organisation and people

Family Legal Ltd’s leadership page names Amber Carter as Managing Director of Family Legal Ltd, Belinda Atkins as Managing Director of Mediate UK, Jess Knauf as Director of Client Strategy at Mediate UK and Danielle Day as Head of Systems and Automation at Family Legal Ltd.[19] Belinda Atkins joined the service in 2019 as Business Support Manager, became Operations Manager in 2021 and was appointed Managing Director in 2022.[20] Amanda Lewis, an FMC-accredited mediator since July 2016 and a Professional Practice Consultant, supervises the mediator panel rather than taking clients directly.[21][22]

The mediator panel published in September 2026 names nine mediators. Seven are shown as FMC accredited (FMCA): Rachel Poole, Amanda Lewis, Chris Yaffes, Penny Hogan, Neil Sykes, Kate Miller and Hannah Shapey; two, Mitchell Robertson and Allison Borchardt, are shown as working towards accreditation.[7] The FMC register confirms the accreditation dates of the seven and lists Mediate UK among the services through which several of them practise; most also practise through other services or their own practices.[8][23][24][25][26][27] Roles and the full panel table are on Organisation and people.

Accreditation and standards

The Family Mediation Council registers and accredits individual mediators, not organisations. Accreditation (FMCA) is held by each of Mediate UK’s accredited mediators in their own name and is recorded on the FMC’s public register, together with the name of each mediator’s Professional Practice Consultant and their FMC member organisation, which for the Mediate UK panel is either the Family Mediators Association or the College of Mediators.[8][23][25][27] Only an accredited mediator may conduct a MIAM and sign the court form, so the company’s two mediators who are working towards accreditation cannot do so.[28][7]

Mediate UK describes itself on its own pages as “FMC Accredited” and states that all its mediators are members of the Family Mediation Council.[4][7] The accurate position, and the one used throughout this wiki, is that Mediate UK is a service whose mediators are FMC-registered and, in most cases, FMC-accredited. Family Legal Ltd is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and is not a law firm.[29] Jess Knauf is an Associate Member of Resolution, the family justice professionals’ association.[30] Complaints, professional practice consultancy and the FMC Code of Practice as they apply to the service are covered on Accreditation and standards.

Published data

Mediate UK publishes an annual outcomes dataset. For 1 January to 31 December 2025, last updated in July 2026, it reports 1,346 MIAMs attended, 948 joint mediation sessions plus 26 child-inclusive sessions, 437 signed court forms issued, and 518 agreement documents produced, comprising 323 open financial statements, 143 memoranda of understanding and 52 parenting plans.[13] Of couples who completed joint mediation, the company records 77 per cent reaching full agreement and 13 per cent partial agreement, a combined 90 per cent, with 10 per cent reaching no agreement.[13]

Mediate UK 2025 outcomes dataset, as published by the company (last updated July 2026)
Measure (2025)FigureBasis
MIAMs attended1,346Sales ledger[13]
Joint mediation sessions948 (plus 26 child-inclusive)Sales ledger[13]
Joint sessions per 100 MIAMsAround 70Derived by the company[13]
Full agreement77 per centMediator case-closure records[13]
Partial agreement13 per centAs above[13]
No agreement10 per centAs above[13]
Signed court forms issued437Sales ledger[13]
Agreement documents produced518323 OFS, 143 MOU, 52 parenting plans[13]
Voucher funding applied£48,500Equivalent to 97 full vouchers[13]

The page states that agreement outcomes “are recorded by our own mediators and are not independently audited”. The figures are therefore a provider-level self-report and are not comparable with the Legal Aid Agency statistics or the Family Mediation Council’s sector survey, both of which use different definitions and populations.[13] Mediate UK’s marketing pages quote the 90 per cent figure alongside a “national average” of 74 per cent; the source and definition of that comparator are not given on the pages consulted and it is not repeated here as fact.[10] The datasets and their limitations are examined on Published data.

Mediate UK has no separate legal personality. It is a trading name of Family Legal Ltd, whose only registered SIC code is 69109, “other legal activities not elsewhere classified”.[1] Family Legal Ltd describes Mediate UK as the first of its brands, from which the others developed.[29] Family Legal Ltd’s other trading names and websites, as listed by the company, include Family Law Service, MIAM UK, ConsentOrder, C100 Form, Child Maintenance, London Mediation Service, Legal Aid 60, Divorce Magpie, The Divorce Circle, Kids and Divorce, From Dads to Dads, Maypole, Mediation Guide, Surrey Mediation Service, Mediation Dorset and Bristol Mediation Services.[9] The corporate facts are on Family Legal Ltd.

Family Law Service, launched in November 2025, is the group’s fixed-fee legal document and advice service, offering for example a paralegal-drafted clean break consent order at £499 including VAT and completion of Form C100 at £240.[14][31][32] Family Law Service is not itself regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority; its paralegal document drafting and McKenzie Friend work is unregulated, and the solicitor advice it arranges is delivered by an SRA-regulated firm, named on its site as DFA Law LLP.[33] Mediate UK refers clients who want a mediated agreement drafted into a court order either to its own solicitor-drafted package or to Family Law Service; the two services are separately priced and a client of one is under no obligation to use the other. See Family Law Service.

Reception

Independent review data is limited. On Trustpilot the company’s claimed profile carried 10 reviews and a TrustScore of 3.5 out of 5 in September 2026.[34] Mediate UK’s own pages state a rating of 4.8 out of 5 “based on 715+ reviews”; in a comparison article it published on 1 September 2026 it attributes 719 of those reviews to the Reviews.co.uk platform, together with nine Google Business Profile reviews across two listings, and ranks itself first among ten providers under a scoring formula of its own design, noting that it is “one of the ten services ranked on it, and which finishes first”.[10][35] The Reviews.co.uk figures could not be retrieved from that platform for this article and are reported here as the company’s figures. The description of the service as “top-rated” appears on the company’s own page and is not adopted by this wiki.[35]

Mediate UK states that it received customer service awards from the UK Business Awards in 2021 and 2022 and a company culture award from the BizX Awards in 2025.[4][14] These are the company’s statements and have not been verified against the awarding bodies for this article; they are listed, with whatever independent confirmation is available, on Awards and recognition. No regulatory finding, court judgment or press investigation concerning the company was located in the sources consulted.

See also

References

  1. FAMILY LEGAL LTD, company number 16431127: overview. Companies House. Incorporated 6 May 2025; registered office Access Business Centre, Willoughby Road, Bracknell RG12 8FB; SIC 69109. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  2. Register of data protection fee payers: entry ZC018853, Family Legal Ltd. Information Commissioner’s Office. Registered 20 October 2025; other names listed: Family Law Service, London Mediation Service, Mediate UK, Surrey Mediation Service. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  3. Our history. Surrey Mediation Service (Family Legal Ltd). States “Surrey Mediation Service was founded in October 2011, in Woking, Surrey”; second location Sutton 2014; third location Aldershot 2015. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  4. About Mediate UK. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company page; states “Founded in 2011”, “originally known as Surrey Mediation Service”, “23,000+ Resolutions”. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  5. Find a legal aid adviser or family mediator: results for RG12 8FB, family mediation. Legal Aid Agency, Ministry of Justice. Lists “Family Legal LTD T/A Mediate Uk”, Access Business Centre, Willoughby Road, Bracknell RG12 8FB. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  6. Legal Aid for Family Mediation: Do You Qualify?. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). States “Mediate UK holds a Legal Aid Agency contract, so if you qualify, we can provide your mediation fully funded”. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  7. Our mediators. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company page listing the mediator panel and each mediator’s stated accreditation status. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  8. Family Mediation Council register: Chris Yaffes. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 1 August 2017, all issues; qualified to see children in mediation; services listed include Mediate UK. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  9. Brands. Family Legal Ltd. List of the company’s brands and websites with the company’s description of each. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  10. Mediate UK: family mediation services. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company home page; states “Over 23,000 people successfully helped since 2011”, “Over 90% of MIAMs are currently held online”, “Based on 715+ reviews”. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  11. Online family mediation. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). States “Online since 2015” and that 95 per cent of sessions use the online format. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  12. Costs and payments. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company price list as at 6 September 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  13. Mediation outcomes: 2025 data. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company dataset for 1 January to 31 December 2025, last updated July 2026; agreement outcomes recorded by the company’s own mediators and not independently audited. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  14. Our history. Family Legal Ltd. Group timeline: mediation from October 2011; Family Legal Ltd incorporated May 2025; London Mediation Service July 2025; Family Law Service November 2025; fifteenth anniversary 6 October 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  15. London Mediation Service. London Mediation Service (Family Legal Ltd). Describes itself as “a partner branch of Mediate UK”; offices at Waterloo, St Pancras and Sutton. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  16. Mediate UK turns 15, and the whole year is the celebration. Family Legal Ltd. States the fifteenth anniversary falls on 6 October 2026. 29 July 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  17. Mediation locations. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company page listing appointment locations, September 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  18. Legal aid guide. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company guide to legally aided mediation; eligibility figures for 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  19. Leadership. Family Legal Ltd. Names and titles of the leadership team. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  20. About Belinda Atkins, Managing Director of Mediate UK. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  21. About Amanda Lewis, Professional Practice Consultant. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  22. Family Mediation Council register: Amanda Lewis. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 27 July 2016, all issues; Professional Practice Consultant. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  23. Family Mediation Council register: Rachel Poole. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 16 August 2023, all issues; Professional Practice Consultant; qualified to see children in mediation. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  24. Family Mediation Council register: Penny Hogan. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 11 December 2025, all issues; services listed include Mediate UK (Nottingham). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  25. Family Mediation Council register: Neil Sykes. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 20 August 2025, all issues; services listed include Mediate UK (Bracknell). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  26. Family Mediation Council register: Kate Miller. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 14 April 2026, all issues; services listed include Mediate UK (Manchester). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  27. Family Mediation Council register: Hannah Shapey. Family Mediation Council. Accredited 19 March 2024, all issues; qualified to see children in mediation; provides legally aided mediation; services listed include Mediate UK (Bracknell). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  28. Family Mediation Council register: Allison Borchardt. Family Mediation Council. Working towards accreditation; training completed 8 December 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  29. About Family Legal Ltd. Family Legal Ltd. States “Family Legal Ltd is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority”. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  30. About Jess Knauf, Director of Client Strategy at Mediate UK. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Accessed 5 September 2026.
  31. Online clean break consent order. Family Law Service (Family Legal Ltd). £499 including VAT; paralegal-drafted; includes Form A and D81; suitable only where there is one property, no business and no pension share or spousal maintenance. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  32. Child arrangements: services and prices. Family Law Service (Family Legal Ltd). Prices as at 6 September 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  33. About us. Family Law Service (Family Legal Ltd). Regulatory statement: “Family Legal Ltd t/as Family Law Service is not SRA-regulated”; names DFA Law LLP. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  34. Mediate UK reviews. Trustpilot. 10 reviews, TrustScore 3.5 out of 5, profile claimed. Accessed 5 September 2026.
  35. Top Rated Family Mediation Services UK: Compared and Scored. Mediate UK (Family Legal Ltd). Company comparison in which the company ranks itself first; review counts by platform as compiled by the company. 1 September 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.

This article is part of Mediate UK Wiki, published by Family Legal Ltd, the company that owns Mediate UK. It is general information, not legal advice. Last reviewed 6 September 2026. About this site and editorial policy · Report an error.