Mediation and estate planning

Having discussed how mediation works in the first part of this article ‘Back to the future: 1’ (Taxation 3 March 2022 page 13) I will in this second article explain how mediation – or facilitated lifetime planning – can also be used as a lifetime estate and business succession planning process.

If an international business family does not know how to start an inter-family discussion about how to put their house in order before a monumental event occurs – such as loss of capacity or death of the head of the family – a pre-emptive process of mediation can be used to create a safe space in which each key family member is empowered to:

• voice their individual needs concerns hopes expectations and priorities to a non-partisan and beneficially disinterested person who is bound by confidentiality and has the soft skills to...