Friend of a friend renting for school places...

[DoodleNoo]

Ive recently found out that a friend of a friend is renting her own house out and renting another house to live at, well within the very tight catchment of her preferred secondary school, in another part of our London Borough.

I don't know all the details and to be fair I do know that the family has been toying with the idea of moving away for a long time, so I could be generous and assume that they are ultimately planning to buy in the area where the preferred school is. But it still seems unfair that they are jumping the queue to this sought after school.

When I see her in the mornings, dropping her children at primary school near to their old /actual home), I feel so repulsed that I can't bring myself to speak to her.

Am I being unreasonable? I think I feel it all the more acutely as my own DD is applying to secondary school this year and we have been honest and realistic with our choices, even though there is a good chance that we might not particularly like what we end up with.

Mog
Possibly or possibly not. I agree its difficult if you keep the house and rent it out perhaps if you have marketed it for a while then at least you have evidence of an intention to sell. Some councils will accept that others may not. Again moving to a larger rental property would probably be more credible than a family of 4 that downsize from a 3 bed house further away to a 2 bed flat next door to the school etc.

Repulsed?? You need to get out more chik.

Ruby
Its not comparable, you won't be renting in the same city as your owned property let alone the same borough. Its not as if you could commute from London to Canterbury every day. In the OP's example, they are still within the same borough.

But we are moving simply to avoid the schools here. OH will still commute into London every day.

Mumsnet is a funny old place. On this recent thread the majority of posters state that renting for catchment purposes is shameful, divisive, immoral etc.

I think, op, you chose the wrong word when you said "repulsed" and many of your replies focus on that, rather than what is the real issue here.

Ruby
Yes but you are moving permanently to Canterbury. You won't get a school place in Canterbury then move back to London. You will be living there for the longer term so you are equally entitled to a school place. Moving for better schools isn't an issue, pretending to move / short term relocation is a problem as far as I am concerned.

But it appears to be exactly what the OP's FOF is doing: long-term renting with an eye to buying in the same area in the future. I don't see that there is really any difference morally.

(We're moving that way also to be closer to GPs and some friends who have also moved there so I will finally have some local support, but the thing that has made it finally possible is the new fast-link back up to London.

Get a life.

Well the issue is that there is no evidence that they are doing anything shady at all as OP said that they had always talked of moving. Therefore it seems simply ridiculous to be ignoring them at the school gates and getting repulsed by them.

Letting and renting is becoming common, people cant sell their previous homes and need more space a garden/better schools.

Renting gives you a lot more choice certainly where I live as they are similar all over the city depending on the size and condition of the house, so why wouldn't you go near a decent school?