Divorce mediation can be beneficial for many different situations. Often, people associate mediation with disputes related to their children. Those who may share custody of minors after a divorce often recognize how important it is to maintain an amicable dynamic with one another.
Many times, however, divorce mediation focuses on economic and financial matters rather than child custody issues. Spouses who participate in economic mediation can work out a settlement for property division and financial support instead of litigating these matters. Doing so is beneficial in an assortment of different scenarios, including when spouses face a high-asset divorce involving particularly valuable or complex marital resources.
What benefits does economic mediation offer?
For those in a high-asset divorce scenario, both privacy and control can be compelling reasons to mediate economic disputes instead of litigating them. During property division litigation, spouses have to make thorough financial disclosures to one another.
Submitting a comprehensive inventory of assets and debts to the courts can feel like an invasion of privacy. People may worry about the scrutiny they might face because of their current financial circumstances. The ability to thoroughly assess financial records in a confidential setting makes mediation beneficial for those facing high-asset divorces who do not want to parade their property through the family courts.
The ability to control the terms set is also an attractive benefit. Judges applying West Virginia’s equitable distribution statute can award property and responsibility for certain debts to both spouses. They might even order the liquidation of certain assets as part of a property division settlement.
Spouses who have business holdings, non-liquid investments and other complex resources may want to retain control of the property division process. They can agree on a fair market value for their shared resources and then work out a viable compromise for splitting those resources, as well as any debts that they share with one another.
While those in high-asset marriages may not find the cost-control aspect of mediation particularly compelling, the opportunity for a faster, more streamlined divorce might be appealing. Divorce mediation can help those facing the end of a marriage take control of the situation. Successful mediation empowers spouses and can help them protect their privacy as they go through the process of ending their marriage.