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

You can appeal but it's unlikely you'll be heard before September.
You're literally not living in the house. You own the house no argument there. But you weren't living in it when you applied and you still aren't living in it.

The thing is you could just be someone who buys a house to apply and sells it once the child starts school. (The empty house was likely seen by someone in school.) The school rules are there to avoid that scenario.

Appeal but basically you can't prove they aren't following the admissions policy so you'll be wasting everyone's time. Move in and go on waiting list.

You need to know how Admissions will consider your current home before you move into a building site.

They may not consider your new property as the child's home until the old one is disposed of by sale or it is contractually rented out. Good luck.

Echoing everyone else who says you need to move in now and then tell the school so it can all be updated before everything shuts for summer. You’ve got nothing to lose by appealing as well although your chances of winning is going to be answered by the experts here.

But if you’ve applied for an oversubscribed school then yes they were very strict with this. Plenty of parents have and will game the system so they have to be strict. I know you didn’t intentionally deceive them but they have to draw a line somewhere.

When DD2 was starting secondary at a selective, they asked us for the land registry document of the house. Yes really.

Appeals are about have they applied the rules correctly. In your case, it sounds like they have.
I would put all effort into moving in asap, not appealing. Get it liveable in days and get in, let it be finished around you.

I doubt an appeal would be heard until the autumn term now. As far as the panel is concerned it really depends on whether they prefer your version of events or the council’s. I doubt they would have much sympathy as you still have your other property.

I did hear a case once as a panellist where a family were unable to move in due to a series of disasters but they were renting and it was a totally unforeseen situation and fully documented.

If you've completed on your new home but are still living in your current home what is the plan for current home - presumably you haven't got buyers waiting around for you to move in. Is it on the market? How far away is it from the new home because if there isn't an intention to sell the current home, could the LA take the view that this is a fake set up (beyond how it already looks)?

ETA or are you renting current home?

You could buy a place and then say this is your main residence, when it is not. Or change your mind about moving in. If you haven’t sold and this is a second property, then this is exactly what they are trying to avoid. When you move in things will change, as they have already stated.

Honestly OP I think you've had the overwhelming response of "you need to just move in". We can believe that you have every intention of living there and that this was in no way an attempt to play the system, but the reality is that the school will not be able to take a chance on that while you continue to not live in your new home. It's striking that despite all the responses advising you to move in your replies appear to avoid acknowledging this. I do hope you get the outcome that you want in the end.

I lersonally think its getting too late in the day to sort for september start based on our experience of dealing with admissions late in the summer term.
If op moves into a campervan she could end up being there all summer and into winter.
Best bet now is probably get any school place allocation you can, move in when the works are done and then go kn the waiting list.
Hoenstly I picked apart the admissions criteria word for word and tbe council admissions, went on forums and did hours of research and concluded the only conclusive way to ensure a place was to move part and parcel by end of year 5. Which we did and are still financially reeling from it two years on. All other options were so risky and could end up with no place.

Campervans can be hired that you could park on the drive. But the main issue will be that you still own your old house. The reason why some councils allow for exchange of contracts being the trigger is that they expect that's irrevocable commitment to a move very shortly afterwards, on completion.

Honestly, even if you had moved in, still owning your old place might well have been a problem.

So we wanted an out of catchment school. We rented our house out and moved to the area next to the school in jilt of year 5 with no intention to go back to the old house and have stayed renting now for two years.
Youve left it really late I think for any other option such as renting a property in the area while tour house is renovated, your only option is going to be to move in, like this week as there is only about two weeks left before they stop dealing with application issues and then break for summer. Its not the LA who will break, its the school and the LA eont get an answer from the school until way into september.
You literally need to move in this week for a hope in hells chance to turn this around.
Someone else is going to be given that place and then youre going on that waiting list and if its over subscribed you could be waiting a while.
You need to be calling the council and talk to the school and say you are moved in and be moved in, this week. And have all your bank, chikd benefit, drs surgery all moved over.
Our school checked the drs, we had to get a letter too.

Not an expert but I agree with others - you need to move in. Into a caravan on site, or get a basic working kitchen, lavatory and two bedrooms habitable and move in.

You were naive not to consider how this looks to the school, who have hundreds of applications and who have no idea nor do they care how long you have been looking for a house and whether you can afford it or not. On the face of it, you have bought a house and not changed your address on anything, you still live in your old home and are seemingly making no attempt to move into the new home well after the purchase date - have you even sold your existing home or given notice on your rental agreement, whichever is appropriate?

The only thing to do is move in and appeal! Even if it’s just you and the child concerned. Whoever turned up, the builders will have told them you weren’t living there. This happened to my DS’s school friend. The mum and her DS arranged for a caravan to be parked on her house building site’s drive and moved in there for 3 months! They would only go back to the rented accommodation at weekends and the builders, during the week, had strict instructions to tell anyone who asked that she was in work and would be back by 4.30. She had a couple of people turn up unexpectedly, once she had won her appeal, so she was glad she’d made the effort. It was a nightmare for them but well worth the effort because the alternative was the worst performing school, in the area, rather than one of the best.

Oversubscribed schools will always check whether an address is real or not. If you’re lucky your appeal will succeed, if not then you’ve learnt the hard way.

You hadn't moved in so weren't living there. That's why the offer was withdrawn. Most people couldn't afford to do what you did.

You need to leave there, and some secondary school require you to have lived there for 3 years but this is mainly for grammar schools and I'm sure word would have circulated if it was the case

No, sorry.

You can win an appeal two ways: there was an admissions error which meant you lost out on a place. Or, there is some very strong reason why your child needs this particular school rather than any other (example: they have a hearing impairment and this is the only local school with a specific acoustic design) which is sufficient to outweigh the problems caused to the school from taking an extra child. Neither is present here, unless you have a special reason for your child to go to this school that you haven’t mentioned.

Not realising you had to live at the address applied from won’t cut it. I imagine your local admissions websites say clearly that you are supposed to put down the address where your child resides at the time of application.

It is a shame you didn’t move in at completion and get the offer sorted right away. But do it now. Appeal is not going to help you fix this.

I don’t think there’s any point appealing unless you’ve moved in. Until you’re living their you don’t meet their criteria.

Even then, if you weren’t living there when they offered you a place, according to their selection criteria someone else should have that space not your DS so you might well lose, but it would probably be worth a go.

If you’ve been living in temporary accommodation (family/airbnb/etc.) you might be able to make the case it was your DS’ home and he’d only “moved out” for the renovations. But if you’ve been living in the house you had before you bought this one, then that would be less convincing.

I would move in today (taken plenty of bottled water and “camp” if you need to) and see if you can join the waitlist again and also appeal. I wouldn’t do anything sneaky like lie about living there but really go back to your old place, you’re on their radar now and you probably can’t afford to get caught out.

They clearly have some waitlist movement if you were offered a space off it and, assuming the waitlist criteria is based on your address, you’ll be right near the top of the list straight away. So you may just get offered a place, based on living in the new house, and not have to worry about an appeal.

And to add to that while you’re sorting out the appeal you need to find a new school asap, or be prepared to homeschool.

If you haven’t actually moved it will look like you are trying to commit admissions fraud and have purchased a house solely to use the address for admissions and then sell it on again.

Sounds insane and I’m not saying that’s what you have set up to do but believe it or not some people really do do that.

You should start working on your appeal now, it may be worth starting a fresh thread for appeal advice. You’ll need to make a case separate to this address issue.

There you go.
You haven't moved house yet.
For all they know you've bought a property to do up, use it for school admission, and sell on without ever moving in.

School admissions are controlled to try to ensure school places go to local children. They can be very strict. Moving after the 31st October deadline was always risky.

As others have said you need to move in straight away.
Have you spoken to the school? Do you know if your child’s place has already been given to someone else? If not, then maybe you could explain you have just moved, that their information about the house being empty is now out of date, and maybe they can reconsider. Obviously if your child’s place has already been given to someone else then you’ll have to go through the usual appeal process and hope for the best. But either way, the sooner you move the better.