Al-Mizan Mediation Centre

The Problem#

• Dubai’s expat population means estate disputes often involve families spread across multiple countries, cultures, and legal traditions
• The UAE’s dual-track succession system (sharia for Muslims, difc or decree_law_41_home_country for non-Muslims) means beneficiaries under different systems have different entitlements — and different expectations of transparency
• Family mediation frequently stalls because some beneficiaries demand full disclosure while others insist on privacy — particularly where second families, estranged children, or culturally sensitive bequests are involved
• Mediators currently manage this with redacted PDFs and selective verbal disclosure — error-prone and legally fragile

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Every entity in an INHERIT document has a visibility field from common/visibility.json, with levels: "testator_only", "proxy_visible", "companion_visible", "executor_visible", "beneficiary_visible", "all_parties"
• The mediator sets visibility per entity — a beneficiary can see their own bequest (beneficiary_visible) without seeing other beneficiaries’ shares (executor_visible)
• The uae extension’s successionTrack field determines which system applies: "sharia", "difc", or "decree_law_41_home_country" — each with different disclosure norms
• difcWill captures DIFC Wills Service Centre registration details for non-Muslim expats
• expatriateHandling models the home-country law election available under Decree-Law 41/2022
• The mediator creates filtered INHERIT document views per party — each beneficiary sees only what’s appropriate for their role and the applicable succession track

The Integration#

• Internal tool: Al-Mizan’s mediation platform reads INHERIT documents from solicitors and renders visibility-filtered views for each party
• The mediator adjusts visibility levels during sessions — escalating disclosure as trust builds
• Final mediated agreements are exported as INHERIT documents with visibility levels appropriate for the executor

The Business Case#

• 65% of disputes resolved without court referral — up from 40% without structured visibility controls
• Mediation time reduced from an average of 8 sessions to 5 when beneficiaries can see their own position clearly from the start
• Al-Mizan charges AED 15,000 per mediation engagement — the structured approach supports 120 cases per year
• Solicitors refer clients to Al-Mizan specifically because the INHERIT-based process handles multi-cultural disclosure sensitivities that PDF redaction cannot

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. A British expat dies in Dubai with assets across the UK, UAE, and India; three children from two marriages are beneficiaries
2. The eldest child demands full disclosure of the estate; the second family insists on privacy
3. The mediator produces four different redacted PDFs — one per party — manually removing sensitive sections
4. A redaction error reveals the second family’s bequest amount to the eldest child; trust collapses and the dispute escalates to DIFC court
5. The court case takes 14 months and costs AED 500,000 in legal fees

With INHERIT:

1. The estate’s INHERIT document has visibility levels set per entity: each bequest is beneficiary_visible only to its recipient
2. Al-Mizan’s platform renders a filtered view per party — the eldest child sees their share, not anyone else’s
3. As mediation progresses, the mediator escalates visibility for specific entities as agreements are reached
4. All three children accept the mediated outcome in 5 sessions; no court referral is needed