School have revoked offer - not sure what to do next.

No reasons at all, other than proximity to your new address?

Do they both offer exactly the same range of subjects, or is there a subject that the school you'd prefer offer that isn't offered at other schools? How about clubs? Sports? Pastoral care? Are the children set in ability groups earlier in one school than the others? Would that impact your DS? You can use any reason - obviously, the more specific it is, the more compelling, but it's all worth trying.

If your preferred school has a particularly weak case, then you might find that even 2 or 3 relatively weak arguments are enough to win.

But will they consider it a move when you still own/rent your previous address?

@Anxsi Have you confirmed with the LA that they will accept your new address as soon as you move in if you still own/have a rental contract on your previous house?

If not, the moving in may make no difference.

In the meantime get all your documentation swapped over eg driving licenses etc if you haven’t already.

I promise you will manage in the house for a short time even if it is a mess. We always bought wrecks and did them up over time in order to be able to afford them. We could never afford to rent elsewhere so we have lived in houses without kitchens with toddlers before, just using toasters and microwaves on the floor. We even had no bathrooms for a time, bathing the children in plastic baths. At one point we had to have a wash feet every night routine due to the dust! Somehow you manage to get through even if it does get you down for a while!

The LA doesn't get to decide appeals. They are decided by an independent appeal panel. If the child is musically talented and the appeal school has more extracurricular musical activities, that can help to win an appeal. If the child is particularly sporty and the appeal school has more sporting activities or better facilities for sports, that can help to win an appeal. But I agree that an appeal on the basis of wanting a better school won't work. You can't win an appeal for an outstanding school on the basis that the offered school is rated inadequate.

Yeah, you have to have REALLY specific and evidenced reasons why one school meets your child's needs and another doesn't. LAs take a firm position that all of their schools are excellent schools. You can't just say ' we think that school is rubbish with rubbish results but this school is great.' It would have to be something like, our kid has autism and this school has a specialist autism unit and here are the specific, evidenced reasons the other school can't meet his specific needs as an autistic child.

You won't succeed at appeal with arguments about the address. However, you can win if you can show that your child will be disadvantaged if they aren't admitted and this outweighs any problems the school will face from having to cope with another pupil. People on here sometimes talk about needing a compelling reason or showing that this is the only school for your child. Both of these are wrong. You simply need to show that this school is better for your child than the alternative.

The LA where you currently live must come up with a place for your child somewhere. If they don't offer a place by the time of the appeal, that will put you in a strong position as the alternative to this school is no school at all. If a place is offered, you need to look at what the appeal school offers that is missing from the allocated school and is relevant to your child. If you can identify a few such things, you will have a chance of success.

Whether you can win an appeal depends on the strength of the case you put together and the strength of the school's case to refuse admission.

It’s true you have nothing to lose by appealing but it has no real chance of success.

Move in, prove it to school, and get bumped up waiting list - this is your best hope.

Unless the house is actively dangerous, genuinely move in now and notify the school. Your son should then move up the wait list. Personally I'd put a caravan on the drive if the house was actively dangerous!

It sounds like appealing isn't going to get you anywhere but appeal by all means just do it as well as moving in and then notifying the school. You moving in won't impact the appeal, but another place may come up before September and it sounds like your DS will be at or around the top of the waiting list once you move in.

You have nothing to lose by applying.

Find someone with experience to put together your documentation to show the sequence of events. Maybe they can attend the hearing with you.

You won’t fall out with the school. They don’t mean it personally. The just feel they must apply the rules (as they see them) correctly. If the appeals panel allows the appeal they shouldn’t have anything against you.

Can the builders turn it on at the end of the working day? That's what our plumber did when we had the bathroom renovated.

"You need a compelling reason why the school is the only one your son should attend."

This isn't entirely accurate. You need reasons why your DS needs a place at the school, which outweigh the reasons that the admitting authority gives that the place should be denied. This is why nobody on any forum can tell you what will succeed at appeal, only what has a better chance of succeeding. Two people can have exactly the same grounds of appeal that are equally as compelling in their own right. But if one school is 'full' yet can't demonstrate that it would be compromised by taking another child, the appeal will succeed, and if another school shows that it is full and there would be real problems if it were to admit another child, the appeal will fail.

It's pointless moving in to appeal because you are then living there.
The offer was revoked because you didn't move in and live there but led them to believe you had. You can't claim maladministration.

You need a compelling reason why the school is the only one your son should attend.

We withdrew an offer from a parent that claimed to have moved into a house by the deadline but hadn't (they actually moved in 3 weeks later). She went to appeal because she had moved by offer day and got short shrift from the panel.

from an admissions point of view they take the property you are residing in as the primary property.
unfortunately as you still have hold of this property this will go against you even if you are planning to move into the other one. They have to take that into consideration. What timescale have you got to cut ties to this property?

Most Admissions policies are really clear that it has to be the child's main address with all bills registered there and that you have to actually be living there. Not surprised the school rejected it, especially if it's oversubscribed. Is the new house actually suitable accommodation for you or so run-down that it's not plausible that you're going to live there anytime soon? The school will be alive to every scam in the book including people buying a one bed flat or derelict house and claiming to live there but never actually moving in. People try all sorts to get into a good school.

I agree with others, move in. You can appeal, but you'd have to appeal on the grounds of prejudice, so you'll need to come to with a strong list of reasons why your DS needs the place, and locality and convenience is not one of them.

@Anxsi I an afraid I agree with others – you don’t live in the house (and you never have?) so the LA is allowed to do what it has done. You must see that if discretion and flex were allowed, it would make the system unworkable. If one of the criteria is that the child must be living in the house on x date, and your child is not, then if the school flexes and says “well that’s fine, we won’t apply that rule strictly” then someone else who lives closer than your DC misses out on a place.

We understand that you did not mean to fiddle anything; but knowing the timescale in terms of admissions I have to say I would have moved in at once and renovated. I know people who have lived through massive kitchen extensions, loft conversions and worse. Anyway what is done is done.

The house you live in now – is it you original home that you still own and have not sold? Or are you renting? If the latter, surely you just yes, check with the LA about whether you will get a place and then if yes, give notice on the rental and move now. If you have another property to sell, again you can put it on the market and move, tho in some LAs, owning another property (that you might bolt back to) is viewed with some suspicion.

OP, before you start camping without water, you need to understand from the LA if they will accept your new address when you haven’t sold/stopped renting your old house

Then you need to move in (again, camp if need be!) and do whatever you need to get the proof of address for the school. You’ve got council tax but move your doctors, dentist, tell the primary school the new address, register to vote, tell the bank etc.

it might be hideous for a few weeks, but you do this or give up your preferred school.

Do it all this week so you have a chance of getting a place again at your preferred school before the term ends. As PP have said, if you move in (and get proof you have!) you should be top of the list.

I think that’s not quite right- OP applied from her “old” address and then updated the address when she completed on the new house, at which point she (seemingly) lived close enough to be first on the waiting list and hence got in. Many people moving at this stage would be driving their child back to the “old” primary for half a term rather than moving them. So the council would have known about the primary school. The issue is the uncompleted move.

Right.

So you never actually intended to move to the new house before the end of this term? Because it would be too far from the current primary school?

The distance of the current primary will have alerted the school to the fact that you actually live far away.

So have you bought a second house in addition to the one you already own? Why would you not have disposed of your current house if you've bought a new one, the bank won't usually let you hold multiple mortgages unless they are buy-to-let?
You're being a bit evasive. It's not normal not to sell your current house when buying a new one.

Where are you living though?

You must be living somewhere and you haven't been clear where that is.

Where are you living? Are you paying council tax on two addresses?