Do schools check that you're living at the address you put down?

Best option would be to wait to move until after your ds starts secondary school. Once he is in the school you can move however far you want. Plenty of people move after they have secured their spot (at least from what I have observed). It can be annoying, as we own our house and live right near the school, but struggled to get a spot because so many people were renting near by just to get a spot and then move after a year.....

Its well known that our local oversubscribed school hires someone to check addresses of applications each year.

Oh fuck, it was a zombie thread!

Why on earth don't people just start a new one?!

Just stay in your current house.

Why would you commit fraud and take all of the risks that go along with that to be just 15 mins away? There is literally no point in this?

You can move after he has started at the school if you really need to.

@dssam555 you need to start a new thread, or lots of people will respond to the 2022 question, and not yours.

They might.

I wouldn't risk it. I'd just get my dc into the school and then move.

my ex husband moved an hour away and our daughter lives with me all through the week and only sees dad every other weekend during term time. I have just found out he has applied to a local school near his new house and wants to move our daughter there.

firstly he did not inform me he was applying for a secondary school place.

secondly he has put down his address as our daughters main residence

will he get caught out for doing this or am I best to inform the council of what he has done.

our daughter is happy in her current school and would not want to move. It’s a through school so no need to move to a new school in seniors

@PradeepDcosta Depending on when you move, your LA may insist on using your new address. If you move after offers have been made you should be safe, but some LAs will remove your place even though this is a breach of the Admissions Code. If this happens you should be able to get the place back through an appeal, but this is a lot of stress and uncertainty you don't want. I would recommend staying put until your child has started school.

Hi, Can you advise if I can move house after the application date. I want to buy one in the same vicinity and don't want to do it before the application as we're just 50meters from an outstanding school.

Why do you need to move closer to your husbands work place? Wouldn’t it be easier to be near the school - your son could walk home, have friends over, and be close to his friends to hang out, attend afterschool clubs etc? Kids are more involved with the area than a person is with the area where they work!!

Yes, they check addresses.

Secondary school staff really do not have the close knowledge of where their pupils live, and teachers have no close knowledge of the admissions criteria under which students apply. And it is the date of application that counts. You can move once a child is in the school.

So some of these replies are somewhat OTT.

But they do check eligibility within the T&C and will act accordingly so it would be dickish snd put your kids at risk to act fraudulently. So, best not,

Ours didn't check for either child.

Safest to delay the move. We had to provide council tax, utility bill and bank statement.

Once you start lying you are going to have to lie and lie and lie....for years.If there is a sixth form that's 2 more years of lying.
If he is ill and in e.g year 10 he could, presumably, walk home, if you live over the road . But you don't.
He will want to have friends round for tea or to go to friends houses. Those friends and their parents will all know you don't live opposite the school. Someone will shop you. I certainly would.

Totally agree with @Thoosa. Hopefully this thread will have shown you that this is a shitty thing to do. In some areas, you might get away with it. In others, you'd get caught out. And if you do get caught out, you deserve everything that's coming to you.

I have to provide three form of proof of address on acceptance of place. Council tax bill, utility bill and bank statement.

Just do it honestly. Either wait to move or take your chances with the correct address. Your DH is a dick.

We had to provide proof of residence.

In our Borough children have been removed in the middle of the school day where fraudulent application has been proven.

It will take just one child ,the clever dick type, to pipe up "archie x says that's his house sir, but it isn't. His mum brings him in a car, he gets the bus ,whatever". Your son will be asked if that's true. I am fairly sure that lying to your teachers wont end well for your son or you.

Just to add to what previous posters have said, I worked in a support service for local authority and we received a referral and the address given by the school was their old address that hadn't been changed and they were out of our area so I had to refuse support and refer back to the school who had no idea the family lived 25 miles away.

If the house you own, but will no longer live in, is opposite the school, wont the staff notice the following odd things.....
Your child supposedly lives there but is dropped off /collected by car .
That same car is never, ever parked at the house where you apparently live.
Other cars are parked there. People who are not you are regularly seen driving them.
A completely different child/children, who are not related to you, apparently live at the same address that you say is yours. When they are asked, they know nothing about you.
When your son is asked whether he lives over the road do you want him to lie to the member of staff who is asking him ?
When he inevitably forgets something vital won't they think it is extremely odd that he can't just pop over the road to collect it ?
When you drive in to the car park for parents evening wont they think its very odd that you didn't park on your own drive and walk across the road.

Eh? Yes it does. Most schools, primary or secondary, will have distance as their final basis for prioritisation, even if they have lots of other criteria as well.