To lie on the admissions form

[Ibetthatyoulookgoodon]

We are in the process of buying a house, we had our offer accepted back in April, no chain on either side so weren't cutting it fine for the January school application deadline. However, due to some delays on the vendors side (it's a probate sale and there seems to have been some admin issues relating to the will) I am not confident we will have completed by the EO Jan deadline. I have been looking at the form and it looks like you don't actually have to prove your address, you just state it. WIBU to just put the new address even if we haven't completed?

Obviously I appreciate there is a risk that the sale falls through but if that happened we'd either buy something else in the same area or rent until we found somewhere.

What do you think? (takes cover)

Unless you haVe exchanged, or better still completed, that address is not yours. There may be a few weeks after the deadline to update it and be considered on time. If so it will be on the LA website. You may need to submit evidence such as a council tax bill or cb letter.

Is it your catchment school?

Sometimes the Education Admissions team want to see proof you are in the process of buying.
Letter from your conveyancing solicitor etc to confirm.
This is not uncommon. Don't worry.

The new home address I mean, is it/will it be your catchment school. Likely you can apply for a mid term transfer if school has started.
You can’t lie, they will write to you and you won’t be living there yet.

Round here you have to include your council tax reference number with a school application so you wouldn't be able to

They do ask for proof though

you also had to prove at our school that you lived there a certain percentage rid time. Like 87%

people were buying holiday homes in the area so that they could be in catchment or renting a property and then not living there

you won’t get away with it wheee I am

In our area they check council tax records. This is not worth the risk. There is usually a date in early Feb by which you can change the address if moving and not be classed as late.

They do check.

My neighbours DD had her school place removed 2 days before she was due to start.

Should be okay as long as you've exchanged contracts.

We had to send evidence of our address after submitting the application for school. It was after the closing date so must have been part of the allocation process

We had been hoping to move house before the application deadline but it's not going to happen. You need proof of the new address ie to exchange contracts by the end of January. I am just going to use our current address and then update the admissions team with our new address after we have exchanged contracts (if we ever do!) You should still put the school you want as first choice, with your current address you might not get a place and will be on the waiting list, but once you have the new address confirmed it will move you up the waiting list (assume it's in catchment and much closer!)

If your address is different from the one they sent the letter to telling you to make a school application then they will require proof.

The best thing to do is to ring the local authority now and explain your situation and ask them what they will need and when in terms of proof. Sometimes there is a couple of weeks to supply proof which might be the extra time you need. For ours you can state on the form that you’re moving house.

At the same time you should also use that school applications deadline to put pressure on the sellers to complete by that deadline. For some people, getting into a school catchment is the reason to buy a house and they’d pull out of the sale if they didn’t complete in time so it should incentivise the sellers to get a move on.

But the council have the address no? Doesn't your letter come in the post? Ours does so they know where I live and I assume cross reference as surely everyone would just lie

Don't lie. Apply for place as normal
We moved house pre school. Our eldest got into our chosen school from our old house. But we moved in September. I contacted the other council to see if spaces were available for the village school we were moving too in the August. They said to just email with change of preference explaining situation. We didn't have to provide a letter from the solicitor but I'm sure we could if needed. My son got his new place and was in for the first day. We also moved house that day. You could put new school down as 1st choice and more local one as second? But if it's found you lied on the address any places could be pulled due to lieing.

hmmm ok - good info, thank you. To answer a couple of questions, yes the new house is in the catchment area for the school we want to apply for. They don’t mention proof in the form so I thought maybe we might ‘get away with it’ (but it seems not). I realise they would ultimately write to us at the address but I imagine we’d be in before the places are allocated.

Is it always oversubscribed? If not you should get a place regardless of address if you list it first.

They do write but I imagine we’d have the house by then (just possibly not for the application deadline)

Unfortunately it looks like it is, which is why I can’t see how we’ll get a place if we apply from our current address. The new address is well inside last years catchment area but I just don’t think we’ll have it in time :-(

Check the local rules. Quite often the deadline for the admissions form is earlier than the deadline for changing your address and that address still being used for the application to allow for people being in the process of moving.

They have emailed me the form so no need for them to send it out. They don’t ask for proof but I can imagine they might cross check councils tax database or something (but I can also imagine they might not!)

Unfortunately we can’t really make it go any faster - The sale will complete when probate has been grated but we are at the mercy of HMCTS. They’ve only just applied and the deadline is now 8-10 weeks away.

We could pull out but then we’d need to find something else and the house went to best and final offers so they wouldn’t struggle to resell it. We’ve been monitoring the market and nothing else has come up that we’re interested in, since April.

It’s slightly different - application is the 15th Jan but the deadline is 31st Jan so only a couple of weeks extra… could make the difference though!!

If it's any help to give you a bit of hope, the probate office has been getting much faster recently. What stage are they at? It takes a month to get the code from HMRC, and then once you put the application in to the probate office, it has recently often been turning things round in 2-4 weeks (not guaranteed though).

Yes this is fine and I know families who have done it (including with the school / LEA agreement and knowledge). Sometimes it’s special circumstances- eg a military family returning from serving at an overseas base.

As long as you can prove you live there by the date your child starts school!

I’ve just applied for my DD’s reception place and had to fill in my council tax reference number and upload a photo of two bills in my name and address. Obviously could be different in different areas, but as the school is oversubscribed, the council may want to see proof of who lives in the catchment.

Ring them and ask. We applied to an oversubscribed school and never had to provide any additional evidence at the application stage. They may have done their own checks but we didn't need to provide anything. If you ring them and explain it is a probate house they may accept it as your new address.