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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To move out of rented house in catchment a month after DS starts school?

149 replies

Strawbsy · 08/08/2013 20:29

Hello,

My title sounds terrible and I expect I'm in for a flaming.

We moved into a rented house last month in the catchment of a very popular school that we wanted DS to go to. The council called today and offered him a place for September. We're couldn't be happier that a place came up so quickly.

BUT, we also just found a perfect flat to buy. It's large with a garden but a project that needs lots of work. This makes it within our price range and a bedroom more than we thought we could afford. The flat is further away from the school and almost definitely wouldn't have secured us a place for DS.

The councils do investigate families renting close by to get a place at a good school and I know that for this school they do a home visit to check you live where you say you live. I am worried DS school place will be withdrawn if the council see we moved out a few weeks or a month after he started school. What would you do? I am obviously working on the assumption that we offer on the great flat and it all works out.

OP posts:
merrymouse · 08/08/2013 21:19

People are allowed to move for valid reasons. I think your best option is to talk to school lea. However, if buying depends on selling, it doesn't sound as though you are in a position to buy this flat anyway.

merrymouse · 08/08/2013 21:20

Sorry, school or lea.

frogwatcher42 · 08/08/2013 21:21

Sounds like it would have been better to do that Strawbsy. But it still wouldn't alter the fact that you would be moving to get into a school that you want. It would have been better to do it a few years before your dc started I suppose so it looked like to really wanted to be in that area rather than just moving for the school.

It would be different if you had to move to be nearer work etc but from what you say work is exactly the same distance from where you lived before and now.

At the end of the day you did move simply to get into the school, regardless of whether you intend to move there permanently or not. But I expect that is very very common.

merrymouse · 08/08/2013 21:23

I don't think it's wrong to move somewhere to get into a school - it's the not staying there that would cause problems.

merrymouse · 08/08/2013 21:25

Why not just stay where you are and sell your property at end of tenancy?

bringbackopalfruits · 08/08/2013 21:26

I don't think that the fact that the op has another property is an issue, as it's a significant distance away and she's not moving back there. They may ask questions, but she can easily justify it by saying she wanted to move to her current town.

It sounds like the op decided to move towns as the schools are better. No problem there. Ok so many people can't afford to do this but if you can, why wouldn't you? The op has also said that they have been looking for a house to buy in the catchment for the school (and has offered but it's not worked out? May have made that up!). So she's tried to officially relocate there, she didn't actively JUST move there for the school with no intention of it being long term. She has now found the perfect property that's not in catchment, but sounds pretty close.
So, yes the op has moved to get the school, but her intentions sound entirely honest to me.

jessieagain · 08/08/2013 21:28

It is suspicious as there was no other reason to move into a rented property in a different area, apart from getting your child a place at the school.

Mintyy · 08/08/2013 21:30

Yes, and so do the intentions of all the other desperados who are prepared to do the same thing.

takeaway2 · 08/08/2013 21:35

A friend did that and it was fine. They moved from abroad back to this country. No links. Rented a place at the first place that would take them (although she did research and wanted one of 2 schools). Whilst they bedded down in the rented house, they found another house and bought
that one as renovated it. Moved there in August (so was in the rented house for 9 months whilst things got sorted). The rented house's address got them into our school.

Fair enough it was a move from abroad but to me 35 miles is huge. It's a couple of towns at least. I wouldn't really worry.

And anyway even if you decide to put an offer in to new flat tomorrow and manage to list your old flat for sale and someone comes along and offers an acceptable price (all very unlikely in the span of a week or two??) the earliest you will move in is October (6 weeks from middle of August). The home visit will be over by then.

More realistically though is more like 6 months or even longer (check out the posts on property/DIY!).

SanityClause · 08/08/2013 21:40

Have you started the process of buying the property? If not, surely it wouldn't be difficult to show that you have not tried to cheat the system. If you had already started the process of buying before the move, that would look a bit dodgy, IMO.

sparkle12mar08 · 08/08/2013 21:42

180 metres OP, but yes, it's insane (a leafy north Herts market town). On two occasions in the last five years people living on the same road as the rear entrance haven't got in, because the school has an extensive playing field in front and the central measurement point is apparently in the hall. So despite living less than 100 metres from the rear gate one person didn't get in for last September, and a year or so prior to that someone living at the top of the road, maybe 250 metres also didn't get in. Additionally this year there are two terraced neighbours where the one slightly closer got in but the neighbour immediately next door didn't. A matter of a few feet. It's devastating for the families involved. They went to appeal I'm told, but I don't think they won.

bringbackopalfruits · 08/08/2013 21:44

The intentions of those who move out of a house into a rented flat, get the place, then move back to their house are most certainly those of "desperadoes". Someone who chooses to move towns permanently to get their child into a decent school is not desperate, it's doing the best for their child.

Blu · 08/08/2013 21:49

As you are not moving back into your old flat it seems clear that you moved into the area looking to buy a flat there.

Will you really have completed and exchanged and got the new flat into a live-in state by the beginning of Oct?

frogwatcher42 · 08/08/2013 21:49

I'm still in shock that people think 35 miles is a long way. I commute more than that to work some days. And at least 20 miles most days.

I would definitely know enough about any area within 35 miles to know if I wanted to move there! I wouldn't have to move there to find out as I could visit as its so close. To be honest, the local paper reports on all the areas within more than 35 miles and so I would know which areas seem a bit dodgy and which don't.

As with a lot of things on mn, it depends on where you live, and if it is rural or urban etc. I suppose in urban areas with thousands of people, 35 miles covers a lot of ground. I am still struggling with this though!

WhereYouLeftIt · 08/08/2013 21:50

OP, presumably you cannot buy this new flat (which you describe as "a project that needs lots of work" ) until you have sold your old flat? So that could take a while. And if it needs a lot of work, assumong you could afford to do so, would it be worth staying in the rented flat for a bit so that you can get some of the stuff that's hard to live with (replumbing, plastering etc.) out of the way before you actually move in?

I think I'm trying to say that you could be worrying unneccessarily. You could be at your present address for a while anyway.

bringbackopalfruits · 08/08/2013 21:52

I live in London. Wouldn't have a clue (apart from very general stuff) about areas 35 miles away. For me, moving five miles to the next borough wouldn't seem unreasonable to "try it out"!

foreverondiet · 08/08/2013 21:53

He needs to still be living at old address when he starts school. Think it would be problematic to start buying flat before start September as once you own something that could be determined to be your main address.

frogwatcher42 · 08/08/2013 21:54

Bringbackopal - yes, I can understand that in those situations 35 miles could seem a lot.

Mintyy · 08/08/2013 21:57

Yes, "doing the best for their child" whilst trampling over everyone else's eh?

Op, sorry if you have mentioned it but I don't recall - if you succeed in buying this property, will you apply to your local schools there?

merrymouse · 08/08/2013 21:58

35 miles is almost from one side of Greater London to the other. It would be like moving to a different country!

youarewinning · 08/08/2013 22:00

As you moved 35 miles to rent to test an area I think the fact your buying in that general area won't come up as an issue - unlike if you moved a mile into a catchment area iyswim?

35 miles surely classes as a relocation?

I would ring the LA and ask. Just explain you relocated to look to buy, your selling your old flat which was always the plan when you found somewhere and the place you want to buy is out of catchment for the school. Ask where you stand.

frogwatcher42 · 08/08/2013 22:02

Is op in London or somewhere more rural? Don't know why I am banging on about the distance anyway as it is not relevant. It has been accepted that a lot of people move into a decent school catchment and that is what op did so my comments are of no relevance!! The problem the op seems to have is that it may appear he/she had no intention of staying in the area they moved into if they move?.

Littlefish · 08/08/2013 22:03

Is your dc likely to have siblings? If so, if you move out of catchment you may not get a school place at the same school for the sibling. It is a complete gamble, and not one I wod be prepared to make.

merrymouse · 08/08/2013 22:04

I also think there is a difference between catchment area (in my son's old school that was a mile) and the actual distance you would probably have to live from a school to get in, which varied depending on number of sibling entries (but usually around 400m)

I think the school would have been a bit Hmm if you moved out of the catchment area immediately after getting a place, but it was accepted that people moved within the catchment area.

bringbackopalfruits · 08/08/2013 22:05

If you live in an area with rubbish schools, should you stay there just because not everyone is in the position to move? Gone are the days when all schools were much of a muchness.