Temporarily moving for Primary admissions

[Humdingledom]

So I know lots of people do this but can’t help but think it’s really fucking cheeky

We are lucky enough to live in the catchment of the most oversubscribed school in the city. The family of DCs friend at school left their house they own and rented very close to the school so their DC got a guaranteed place at the primary school, and now DC has been there a term they are moving back to the house the own in a different area. There are easily 5 primary schools between here and where they live, with some
of them also “Outstanding” but ours does have a certain reputation.

I know other families temporarily moved in with the grandparents to be closer in the catchment and have now moved back outside the area or are planning to.

Like I said I know lots do it but it’s very annoying when friends that actually live on the catchment border missed out for places at the school when they had the option of two schools.

Let’s be clear I’m definitely not being snobby, I think it’s actually really rude of people who have luxury of moving temporarily when there’s people closer who maybe can’t afford to do that missing out!

@Soberiscoolnow

‘I’ve got money so I can play the system, disregard the rules, and fuck everyone else’

Just like the people who can afford housing in catchment for outstanding schools then?

Where DD was born, it was actually cheaper to send her to fee-paying primary than it was for us to move into catchment for our closest primary school.

Yes, it is fraudulent.

@KrakowDawn

O get where you are coming from but generally there is a mixture of people in many areas if they only have state schools

Ours is a nice village where we get this a lot. We saved and saved and saved to finally be able to move to a desirable are with good schools and did it honestly. We live on the border of two catchment areas with two good schools - one school is two miles away but we fall on the catchment line. The other is ten miles away but in the other catchment area. DC had to go to the school more far away because of people doing exactly what the lady on the OP has done. We are lucky they are both nice schools and it’s worked out so it’s not so much of an issue but for people who have limited transport for example and would rely on the closest school surely you can see how it’s not fair

If they have enough money to pay a mortgage and rent in an expensive area they why can they not move? If they have the sort of money to do this then the place they actually live can’t be so bad either? Or get over themselves and choose another good school. One that’s closer to where they actually live.

Disgusting behaviour. People like this are willing to go to any lengths to game the system to get a little bit more privilege for their children. They are directly stealing a place from another child.

There's nothing to report, the place will not be removed from them because they haven't broken the rules, they made the property in the catchment their main residence for the alloted allocation period and moved after the place was offered. The checks in place check council tax etc this would have been in place as they were living there. Annoying yes, morally wrong yes, against the rules no so there's nothing you can do, as for reporting to the school, (unless it's one of the academy groups that run their own intake which are very few most use the council services) they have nothing to do with place allocation and cannot do anything, you would need to report to the borough but like I say they've not crossed any official lines.

@HiJenny35 that's not true. The exact wording will be different in each LEA but the Haringey protocol mentions this scenario specifically: "A family rents a property, or lives with relatives temporarily, and uses this address
in order to gain a school place, whilst retaining ownership of an alternative property. In cases such as this, the property which is still owned by the family would normally be considered as the appropriate address to assess admission from, even if this property is not currently being occupied by the family."

In most LEAs a further-away property that is owned by the parents of the child must have been sold and contracts exchanged for that further away address not to be used. Being on the market for sale or rented out on a standard shorthold tenancy is insufficient because it would be too easy to revert back there once the school place was secured.

@HiJenny35

Quite simply, you are wrong

Some people own several homes, or develop properties and move on regularly. I wonder how they work it out?

When my son was starting school a few years back we applied for the local school which was at the bottom of our road and we could see from our windows. The school is outstanding and very well known in the area - many parents lied about where they lived and rented out different properties to get their kids in. We didn’t get a place we was sent to another outstanding school but further away. We had to drive past the school we wanted to get to the school we had been allocated, sitting in traffic with the other parents who had lied passing us on the other side of the road coming from the area they really lived in.

Many people who also had the same happen to them appealed and reported the ones who had moved to secure their place but nothing was ever done about it.

It's not really fraud if they did genuinely live there at the time. It would be fraud if they lied about living there. Morally questionable though yes. Bet your DD is pleased though?!

Fwiw people do it for our school too. As long as they do a day at the school that's then for their place. The ones that outright lie often get caught and kicked out though. It was in a the news a while back naming and shaming some

YABU to moan about it if you're not going to report.

A close friend of mine sold her house, rented in catchment from July last year, and has now bought again outside of catchment. She will be moving in January. So not even a full year in catchment. I admire her commitment and pure fuck you energy, but I think a lot less of her now. Because she actually sold the other house I think she's within the rules unfortunately.

Cheeky fuckers the lot of them.

Wouldn't matter what they did with the house as long as they changed their address with banks, Dr's etc to the new one.

@OnceuponaRainbow18

It’s fraudulent and illegal. I would report and the place can be taken away

This is an actual child we are talking about who has been at the school a whole term, presumably settled in and made friends etc. Would you really want the child to be kicked out of school through no fault of their own. And yes another child may have got the place but presumably that other child has now settled in to their school. Besides if the council’s rules are it just has to be where you live at the time of application then the family have not committed fraud in any case.

The Admissions Code makes allowances for children who have already started attending and the place wont necessarily be taken away if they have been attending for more than a term but as mentioned up thread an application from a younger sibling may not qualify for sibling priority or similar limit on the sibling's chances of being offered (e.g. not treated as a catchment child if they are still in catchment etc).

It is a minefield and many different areas and schools deal with it all in different ways - some will investigate all accusations thoroughly and some just check council tax - none of us can say what will happen if P were to report it.

Some areas take into consideration how long you have lived in an address, whether you own elsewhere etc and if in doubt, will take the address the child has the longer association with (happened locally that parents 'split' and the new address right next to the fabulous primary school was not accepted as the child had the longer association with the family address - funnily enough the parents reconciled shortly after they discovered their plan wasn't going to work).

In my experience most admission arrangements will have unspecific wording such as 'on the balance of probability' where they will question why you moved from a nice 3 bed semi into a pokey 2 bed ex council flat next to a school. I know that some authorities have been forced to accept this sort of thing when the house has been sold and the new place is being rented but have accepted the address with the caveat that should the family move further away within a certain time-frame the address would be treated as an address of convenience and action taken (ie removing place or not giving sib priority).

OP should report it - if for no other reason than that the more cases that are investigated, the tighter the arrangements can be made to catch them.

it is unfair and it is tantamount to stealing something - I cant afford a house in the right area so I will lie to get what I want and someone else loses out because I have cheated. if it were benefits and someone forgot to mention that their boyfriend had moved in - half of Mumsnet would be up in arms about the benefit cheat - but when it comes to education apparently it is fair game and honesty doesn't apply.

I wish the system was different - but in all reality, whatever the system was, the wealthy would find a way to make it work for them.

@RoomOfRequirement

Until the government ensures every child has access to the same, high level of education I don't blame the parents one bit.

The educational disparities of people who live in, usually, lower income areas is an embarrassment and absolute travesty.

Well this is very hypocritical of you. Where I live, most very good schools have catchments of social housing alongside million pound houses. Guess who are the ones cheating the system to get in? Of course it's parents just a few hundred metres too far away who swoop in to a rent a house at £3,000 per month for a year and then move out again.

"This is an actual child we are talking about who has been at the school a whole term, presumably settled in and made friends etc. Would you really want the child to be kicked out of school through no fault of their own. And yes another child may have got the place but presumably that other child has now settled in to their school. Besides if the council’s rules are it just has to be where you live at the time of application then the family have not committed fraud in any case."

This is so wet. If the child has only been at school for one term they are not going to be damaged by being moved. You can't use this as an excuse for awful, cynical, "me me me" cheating of the system!

@Borland

Yup, and then others may think twice before illegally claiming a school place for their kid

This might be morally ambiguous but it's not illegal. On the day of application you need to be living in the catchment area, with council tax records etc to prove it. It doesn't matter if you lived there for 5 minutes or 50 years. Similarly, once you are in to a school, you can live anywhere you like.

I understand why people find it a bit irritating but I honestly can't get worked up about it b because at the end of the day, at the time of application they did genuinely live in the catchment area. Sort of surprised it doesn't happen around here more although our local school catchment is getting very small so maybe it will start.

[quote BuanoKubiamVej]@HiJenny35 that's not true. The exact wording will be different in each LEA but the Haringey protocol mentions this scenario specifically: "A family rents a property, or lives with relatives temporarily, and uses this address
in order to gain a school place, whilst retaining ownership of an alternative property. In cases such as this, the property which is still owned by the family would normally be considered as the appropriate address to assess admission from, even if this property is not currently being occupied by the family."

In most LEAs a further-away property that is owned by the parents of the child must have been sold and contracts exchanged for that further away address not to be used. Being on the market for sale or rented out on a standard shorthold tenancy is insufficient because it would be too easy to revert back there once the school place was secured.[/quote]
How is that even enforceable? I have a friend who rented out their house and they rented nearer to the school they wanted. If the council had said, "no no, you own this other house, so that's the house you have to consider your primary residence" that would have been complete bollocks. Heck, I know at least 3 families who own smaller properties in different areas (some close by, others further but still in the county) but who can't afford to upgrade to a bigger home so they rent out the smaller property and then rent a bigger property for themselves and their family. Will those people now not be considered for school places in the area they're renting. Rubbish.

if your primary residence is in catchment area, then that's the residence that counts for your school application.

I think that the situation where it would be considered fraud is if the family rent a place in catchment but don't actually live in it. ie they stay in their original home and take a 3 month hit or whatever on a short term rental. But that would make the rental not their primary residence, even if it is legally theirs, with council tax etc to prove it.

Many years ago I owned a small one bed flat in what I found out was within admissions distance of a very sought after London primary. I knew this because someone put a note through my door (and all my neighbours) saying that if they would pay my council tax for a year and also a sum to be negotiated if they could use my address for a school application. This is probably one of the reasons why that borough is now one of those who does check up on addresses - if you own a large house and rent a small one close by, if you only have a six month rental contract, if you have a suspiciously-timed marital breakdown etc.

We’ve just moved into a rental house prior to buying in an area, and arrived just after the first cut off for 2022 secondary applications. Luckily the local authority form included a section for people imminently moving to the area, and had already told me in any case that an application up to 31 December with the explanation that we’d just moved would be accepted as on-time BUT the rental contract absolutely had to be for a minimum of 12 months and we couldn’t own a house anywhere nearby. This is a catchment area with lots of good schools, some of which are undersubscribed, so I think they offer more latitude than some others, but they still had pretty strict rules on residency.

@MsMarch

I think that the situation where it would be considered fraud is if the family rent a place in catchment but don't actually live in it. ie they stay in their original home and take a 3 month hit or whatever on a short term rental. But that would make the rental not their primary residence, even if it is legally theirs, with council tax etc to prove it.

No, it is also considered fraud if the family actually live in that property but then move back to their other property out of catchment within a short time frame. By some local authorities/schools.

When a family member sold their last house, they had buyers in a bidding war because it was close to an excellent state grammar. They ended up getting £200k over the asking price.

That £200k would have paid for an excellent independent school for several years, so it seemed bonkers to me.