Is this admission fraud? AIBU to report it?

[grammarmom]

Here's the situation.

We live in a grammar school catchment area that gets smaller every year. When we bought our house several years ago, it was very comfortably within the catchment for an excellent local grammar (very high in the league tables), and oh boy was it reflected in the price. Now we're right on the boundary. Among the thirty or so houses around us, some children got in last year and some didn't, literally a difference of a few yards.

Another child on our street, who is in the same class as my DC, only just passed the 11+ (a few points above the pass threshold). We live on the same road, but they are about 50 yards further from the school gate. Based on last year's distances, my child would likely get a place while theirs wouldn't.

Over the weekend, during a sleepover, the child mentioned that her mother has now rented a house much closer to the school to secure a higher priority for admission. The tenancy was apparently signed one day before the cut-off date, making it "legal" for admission purposes. She still owns their original home, but the story being presented is that relatives who were previously "homeless" will now live there free of charge, and all bills and utilities have been transferred into those relatives' names (I strongly suspect that the mother will in fact pay these bills as those relatives are penniless).

She's even moved the children's belongings to the rented property and makes them spend nights there (they hate it). There's no doubt that once the school place is obtained, they will move right back.

This effectively pushes my child down the priority list and means they may now miss out.

Would this constitute admissions fraud? It feels incredibly unfair that someone with £40k to spare for rent can effectively buy their way into a top grammar school, especially when their child didn't perform particularly well in the exam (despite being tutored for hours every day).

Should I report this? I have no more detail apart from what this child told me (and they obviously weren't too sure about some aspects of it due to age).

My local schools are oversubscribed.

one of the admission criteria clearly states that if, at any point during the child’s time at the school, they change their address to a previous place of residence, they will lose their place at the school as this is clear admission fraud I.e. the family moved house temporarily to get a place at the school.

so if this scenario were happening at my school, when the family move back to their old home, they would be caught out.

happens all the time and the schools are wising up to it.

The rented house would have been occupied whether the school mum rented it or not, probably by a family who also moved into the area just to be within school catchment like this mum did. Very likely they would have done the same as her if it’s a very sought after school.

There was never a guarantee the OP’s child would definitely have been offered a place anyway so it’s not like the school mum is taking HER child’s place.

Reporting someone for fraud out of spite on the strength of her young child feeling safe enough with you to have a chat about her family circumstances, and then grilling her on them when you got some juicy info, without her realising you intended to use that information to cause issues for her Mum and ensure that she misses out on something because you think your kid has, is abhorrent IMO.

I’m sure if she was clever enough to set this all up, school mum would have ensured she met the legal requirements before shelling out all that money.

Good that she’s given refugees a home as well.

It may actually be that because her refugee family obviously can’t rent privately as they had no money and wouldn’t pass the referencing, and didn’t have suitable accommodation for their needs provided by the council, and/or they were housed a long way away from relatives, school mum had gone out of her way and offered them her house, and rented the other one for her family,

I mean where do you draw the line on people spending their own money on property to ensure a good school place?

Oh come on. It comes down to intent. OP intends to stay in her primary place of residence, the other parent intends keep her primary residence while at the same time rent temporarily to secure a school place and then return to her original home potentially out of catchment after 12 months while still retaining the place. Two very different scenarios.

Aren't you bitter because someone did the same thing you did a few years ago... but for them it may work.
Just drop it. If it is legal which it is by the looks of it (and yeah sure the kid told you all those details, yeah right), then they wont do anything about it. There is no fraud here, no matter how much you want it.

I'd report them.

Chances are it will make no difference to your family as there are other factors, and it may not impact them if it's not thought to be fraudulent.

And yeah wealth has allowed you to have more priority than others out there who can't afford this area.

But she's dishonest and the friendship is clearly over anyway (hopefully not for your kids), so if report it and hope it stays anonymous!

if, at any point during the child’s time at the school, they change their address to a previous place of residence, they will lose their place at the school

that's so insane I can't believe it is true. At any point during the child's time at school?!
What if someone moved back in with a parent due to financial hardship? Or a house they owned but had outgrown (again for financial issues).
What if they reunited with a previous partner? There could be any number of reasons someone might do this that have nothing to do with admissions fraud so I'm calling bullshit.

@grammarmom
Go for it: councils positively welcome being informed of fraudulent applications as it affects their budget!

https://www.southend.gov.uk/news/article/3407/southend-on-sea-city-council-stops-294-000-school-admissions-fraud-in-crackdown-on-false-applications

I was responding to questions. I don't believe in trans, gender, age or race. What is British is a question that has been doing the rounds now a days? I understand it means someone who has some paperwork and has been here 5 plus years.

It’s legal. Annoying and slightly unmoral

is that what you went to hear?

so yes report to school if you want.

prob won’t make any diff and if house is rented another family who same age child could rented it so another notch down the ladder for your dc

Ill copy my comment again for you.

"She's done the same as you - moved to get into a school."

Again, care to tell me what is incorrect about that? Or do you want to carry on making a bit of a fool of yourself? Either is cool with me 👍

Surprisingly given the two of you seemed rather antagonistic to one another!

Oh god, how the other half live. Sounds fucking awful and our are all snidy and shit to each other. Setting your kids up to be the same. If poor people did this, gamed the system, then got annoyed at others gaming the system as well, there's no way they would go around snitching on each other and stopping their child from being friends. You all sound horrible and I'm glad I'm well put of this Grammer School shitshow of a moral black hole. Enjoy your big house and being annoyed about your catchment troubles.

It depends on the criteria employed by the school.

However, she’s established the rental as the family’s new main residence and hasn’t just left the previous main residence empty. If she has followed the necessary steps and converted the owned house into a rental property, established herself as a landlord, and is renting it out legally, then I suspect this will stand up to any scrutiny from the school.

Visas can also be extended, or even switched. They may not be required to leave in a year at all.

This. The whole thing is pathetic. Grow up.

Well no but people absolutely do move into the catchment areas of the better schools in Scotland (and that is reflected in the house prices). We chose our area on that very basis after we got married. It was top of my list of priorities.

You sound massively bitter bitter and jealous OP. She has effectively moved. That's actually allowed if you can afford it.
As is paying bills for your relatives.

She too was kn the catchment area when dhe bought her house. The catchment area has changed? She has moved.
That's her right and good for her. She knows her priorities in life and you should keep your nose out of it.

Umm...yea I guess so (???)

The schools round us like this have rules that you have to have disposed of the other property- any property within 20 miles resided in in the last 5 years. So on that basis she wouldn’t be able to use the rented property.

I can easily believe this - it's to stop parents doing exactly what OP's friend has done.
My DC went to a very over-subscribed primary school, where parents would move to a house in catchment, and then move far away and rely on the sibling rule to get their other children in.
One year 28 places (yes, 28 - you read that right) in a yearly intake of 30 (one class in each year) were taken up by siblings.
In our second year there, they introduced a rule that if you changed address, you automatically lost your "sibling rule" rights. And they enforced it too - several friends of mine fell foul to it, even if they were genuinely just moving to a bigger house, in the same area.
You have no idea the lengths some parents go to, and the schools respond in kind.

I also know a couple of people who are using parents addresses etc to access better schools in Scotland. Pretending they have separated from their husbands and moved in with parents with the kids, for example. They do need to show evidence but it’s not that hard to get.

I’m guessing that after 19 pages someone has already given this information but in case they haven’t…

This will depend on what the admissions policy for the school or admissions authority says about main addresses. In areas where this happens a lot to get into desirable schools then the admissions policy will explicitly forbid renting while owning another property in the area. Especially when the moving date was the day before cut off. In which case report away and the admissions application will revert to their original address.

If it isn’t explicitly mentioned you can try but there is no guarantee they will remove the place unless she’s made the mistake of taking out a very short rental agreement and ‘moves back’ to the owned property quickly after places are allocated in March.

Renting out the property would count as disposing of it. So the fact that she has people moving in works.

Why on earth why I make up a story about school admission criteria? It literally states this. I assume the school would use discretion about individual cases.

a quick google shows me this from one school:

1. We will not accept a temporary address if the main carer of the child still owns a property that has previously been used as a home address, nor will we accept a temporary address if we believe it has been used to obtain a school place when an alternative address is still available to that child.

and this…

The School, in conjunction with the local authorities , may investigate any applications:
> Where records show a change of address within the previous 12 months

Not for our local one it doesn’t! They got wise to people ‘renting’ it to a family member like this scenario.