‘Transformative Mediation – How to transform a Contentious Probate, Inheritance Act and Trust Dispute, into an opportunity to expand the pie by applying estate planning principles to develop bespoke and holistic family wealth structuring solutions.’
The following is the draft introduction to a 1 hour pre-recorded talk I am developing to present globally to lawyers, trustees, and family offices during the second half of 2022. Please email any comments to carl@ihtbar.com. I will be completing the draft outline for submission to the seminar provider in mid-January. (www.ihtbar.com).
Draft Introduction – If:
(i)     participants in mediation can use the paradigm of a ‘store of value’ to perceive and re-configure the attributes and worth to each of them of an asset; and
(ii)     the wishes, needs, and priorities of each participant are asymmetrical,
then it may be possible to design a bespoke solution to the problem of reconciling their competing and potentially conflicting claims and priorities, by re-structuring: (a) the legal and beneficial ownership; (b) management and control; (c) use; enjoyment; and commercial exploitation, of the asset, to their mutual advantage.
While this will require compromise, if a practical and sustainable plan is developed and implemented as a result of the process, this may avoid a dispute following a monumental event, i.e. loss of capacity or death of the head of the family.
There may also be hidden value in the form of unutilised tax, regulatory, privacy, asset-protection, and governance efficiencies. Transformative Mediation can therefore also be used to explore how the estate/trust fund pie can be expanded.
Instead of investing in litigation and incurring escalating costs, family members in dispute over an asset, can invest in an estate and business succession planning process that costs each of them nothing, i.e. if the Mediator’s and professional advisors’ costs are paid out of a trust fund or by a Family Office. Therefore, if an international business family does not know where to go, and how to start an inter-family dialogue about how to put their house in order before a monumental event occurs, then a pre-emptive process of Transformative Mediation can also be used to create a safe space in which each key family member is empowered to:
1.     voice their individual: needs; concerns; hopes; expectations; and priorities, to a non-partisan and disinterested person, who is bound by confidentiality and has the soft skills to talk to them, i.e. a mediator; and
2.     speak through the mediator, to a multi-disciplinary team of professional advisors appointed by the Family Office,
in order to jointly develop and agree bespoke practical solutions to the problem.
In other words, Transformative Mediation can be used as an estate and business succession planning process in order to put the family’s house in order and avoid a dispute.