To be declare to School Admissions Dept that we are renting temporarily in catchment?

[Broderieanglaise]

We are renting in catchment because we genuinely can't find a house to buy. We have the intention and funds to buy within catchment, there just isn't anything coming onto the market and there hasn't been since the beginning of the summer holidays. Literally not a single 3-4 bedroom house within the admittedly very tiny catchment area of the school.

The school admissions brochure states if we own a house elsewhere, then any other address will be considered as temporary. But if we sell our other house (which is 45 mins away and next to some excellent state schools already), then we'll lose out on capital appreciation. In other words if we're out of the property game for 12 months or more we're likely to find we can't get back on at the same level in our new area. House prices went up 15% in our area last year and the same is predicted this year.

So am I being unreasonable in asking the admissions dept to allow our application? Am I likely to get a clear answer from them before putting in my application?

Sparechange, I don't think anyone is suggesting that your example is not justifiable. In fact, Tiggy did say

The booklets normally cover lots of common possibilities. Renting on its own (with no other house) is fine. Divorced parents and split custody is fine and there's an explanation to work out which address is the one that should be used even in a 50:50 split

But the fact remains that many, many parents do rent purely to obtain a place at a particular school, and IMO it is entirley appropriate that there are measures in place to stop this from happening. Unfortunately this does mean that a few genuine people such as the OP will fall fowl of this rule.

It might seem unfair for the OP, but how would you feel if your child narrowly missed out on a school place because cheaters were allowed to play the system? Would that be fair?

sparechange it wasn't a few people abusing the system, when I was applying to a popular school 15 years ago, that my road had always been in catchment for, but found myself first on the waiting list having missed the last place by 1.5 metres, the catchment having shrunk to 400m, the Education Department provided me with the names and addresses of siblings who had got in on sibling priority after parents had maintained a local address for 6 months to get a first child a place. In a two form entry school there were 10 of them, and they were travelling up to 10 miles, a journey which would frequently take more than an hour, they were delivered by a people carrier taxi arranged by wealthy parents. Of course because they didn't at that time carry out checks they could not tell us how many parents were doing the same for their first children that year, but it was known that you could command high rentals for properties near the school. They wanted us to contact MPs Councillors etc so that they could implement more stringent regulations. The incident in Camden also involved a significant proportion of the year.

In our borough the pressure on places is now such that parents regularly don't get places at their 6 local schools and the Council can only offer them places at the two undersubscribed schools situated away from the main bus routes at the other end of the borough (and even then often not until other parents have turned down their initial offers there). In those circumstances the pressure on parents to play the system are huge.

Ironically the Councillor Tiggy mentioned has indeed rented temporarily near the school I applied for, and actually lives near the second unpopular school I mentioned. To say parents are is an understatement.

But it is fraudulent. If you're not willing to take the financial hit to sell now, why are you willing to take the financial hit to rent? You can house hunt from 45 minutes away; you don't have to be living in an area to house hunt there. Rightmove is a wonderful thing. You've moved precisely because you want a place at the school.

I have read the whole thread but couldn't see if the OP mentioned what school years her DC are in, I'm just curious to know.

Me too, Creamy...

We can’t accept a temporary address if you still possess a property that was previously used as a home address

But read what that actually says! All it says we will not accept an application from a temporary address
It does not say a rental address where parents retain a previopus house will be treated as a temporary address!

Intit, I would read that as "we can't accept a rental address if you still possess..." Ie a rental or temporary address is find if you don't own another home.

What do you think is meant by temporary in that sentence, then?

Yes and I bet a lot of other people read it like that too.But that isn't what it actually says.
I suspect the word 'temporary' is included because they cannot lawfully say that they will not an accept an apllication from an adress where the parents own another house.

I think it's more if a parent owns two houses, that would be OK.

Anyway, it isn't that useful to OP as the council will almost certainly use her old address then she'll be taking them to court on the meaning of temporary - meantime, she doesn't have a school place.