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).

No not "my mind" - as per the actual written policies. You keep making these statements, which simply aren't backed up / evidenced when you read actual admissions policies. The reality is much more nuanced.

I am not making up these statements. I know from long experience how most LAs implement these policies. If they find that someone has applied from a rented address whilst owning a property in the area they will use the address of the property they own unless there are exceptional circumstances, which generally means the property being uninhabitable. The fact you repeatedly try to read these policies to mean something different is irrelevant. This is what actually happens in the real world.

“The artist child formerly known as admitted” 😀

I did think of that one, but resisted!

The fact you repeatedly try to read these policies to mean something different is irrelevant.

Lol, I'm reading the actual policies as they are written.

So the right thing to do is for this family to “graciously” bump 150 down to 151, to “save” them from a grammar school education? How philanthropic of them.

You are putting on them the interpretation you want, which is that LAs generally allow people to rent whilst owning a property and only sometimes rule it out. I am telling you what actually happens, which is that LAs generally do NOT allow people to rent whilst owning a property and only sometimes allow it in exceptional circumstances (generally when the owned property is uninhabitable). Both interpretations work with the words used. The difference is that mine is the interpretation used by LAs in real life.

👏 prh

Can you give the references for these cases?

I know in my country some schools say you have to have lived in a rental for so long before you apply to avoid these situations. If she hasn't done anything illegal though pretty pointless reporting her.

They may expect the application to have been at the rental for a set time.

Reporting may be fruitless anyway. She could argue her relatives being refugees and only on a year visa, probably with no previous rental references could have made it necessary for her to have helped them, so has a reasonable excuse to have moved into rental herself.

You are putting on them the interpretation you want, which is that LAs generally allow people to rent whilst owning a property and only sometimes rule it out.

No I'm not.

I'm simply pointing out that it's not nearly as simple as saying the fact that you rent a property while still owning a nearby property is automatically admissions fraud.

It isn't.

Every LA has a different policy. Some explicitly allow this and ask for evidence of a rental agreement etc.

Other , more strict areas , say that even renting out your previous property may not be sufficient. They say that renting while owning may be seen as a red flag for investigation, and is not usually allowed if the rental address is temporary (temporary often being suggested as implied by a short term rental agreement of less than 12 months). Even temporary addresses may be considered in extenuating circumstances- eg domestic violence, uninhabitable property etc.

I suspect that what happens in practice is that most people who do this in fact get away with it, either because it's a genuine move (for a range of possible reasons) or because nobody flags what they have done, and that only the most obvious cases (where someone has just short term rented a property , that they are not really living in at all, just to get in catchment) are investigated by the LA , hence always going the way that you mention.

I am not sure continuing to use the word “illegal” is very helpful.

The neighbour has used a rental address for the application when she still owns a home in the vicinity. The LA will either consider that the rental address has been used correctly (unlikely) or will use the prior address.

As prh has stated, very rarely does using an address that the LA consider incorrect lead to criminal proceedings (if you read the link, the woman involved there actually falsified documents such as rental agreements, which has not happened here).

I think it would be clearer to use words like “not qualifying” or “disallowed” than illegal or crime. OP isn’t seeking for her neighbour to be prosecuted, but for the LA’s criteria to be applied to her application,

I think the point is, she probably won’t get to “argue” that case. The LA will ask for whatever evidences they need (council tax bills etc) and note that she has a one year (say) rental contract that started recently but is still the registered owner of a nearby home which was her address for years. If their policy is to use the address of an owned home, they will switch the address on the application to the owned home, after asking whether that house is still habitable or whatever they ask.

They may (unlikely) accept the statement that she was helping out relatives - but ultimately, it was her choice to do that in this way, rather than have them to stay in her house, lend them money or just not help them. It wasn’t fire, flood etc but a free choice. However, if they don’t, there’s not an opportunity for her to argue her case anywhere, the LA will just decide.

Problematic that they don't even offer families a chance to explain/ argue their case!
Makes it all the worse that OP reported this based on partial hearsay from a child.

If the LA’s only evidence was the hearsay word of a child, that would indeed be an issue.

In fact, they will use a whole range of ‘behind the scenes’ information that they already hold or request from other public bodies, and can request further information from the family.

The family can appeal for the school
place they wanted via the usual routes if they think the use of their permanent address is wrong and a place is not allocated.

It would be impossible for the LA to hold a hearing or panel on every case where the parents thought they had a good reason to put down a different address.

As has been said, if this LA does allow a rented address to be used in preference to a nearby owned property, provided that the rental contract is for at least (say) 12 months and that the owned property also has a rental contract on it for a similar time, then those are objective facts that can be evidenced and any worker in the education department would draw the same conclusion, making the process fair and repeatable.

making the process fair and repeatable

it's not though is it? It's arbitrary, since there may be numerous legitimate reasons why people rent and own that have nothing to do with school admissions and anyway the rules rarely outright prohibit this (and for good reason).

A rule being ‘arbitrary’ does not make it ‘unfair’.

A similar case might be faith rules for admission to faith schools, where an ‘arbitrary’ choice is made by the admissions authority as to what evidence they will accept - baptism; weekly attendance for 2 years; signed letter from priest etc, because there is no fair and repeatable way of assessing a person’s ‘genuine belief in that faith’.

The system needs to be repeatable and predictable, yes. Lines cannot be drawn differently every time on a whim. However, the decision to eg class short term rental while owning another home as fraud but moving into the catchment area and selling the previous home as not fraud is an ‘arbitrary’ decision (in the sense that the line could be drawn elsewhere) but is fair if is consistent and transparent and does not discriminate on the basis of a protected characteristic.

And it is entirely sensible that policies are drawn up in such a way that they do not set out an exhaustive list of exactly what might be acceptable and unacceptable, as those wanting to play the system would then take that as an ‘instruction book’ as to how to sail just inside the rules.

Instead, they tend to state the general principles (eg a principle that addresses of convenience are not allowed) and a process that allows them to determine whether there is a reasonable belief that one has been used. As prh has said upthread, there is a known precedent for defining ‘reasonable / unreasonable’ in this type of case, and unreasonable has quite a high bar.

I didn't say that did I. I said a grammar isn't always the best thing for a particular child.

Reading comprehension is dire on here.

@prh47bridge in your experience, where parents have had a school place denied on the basis of reasonable suspicion of deliberate or accidental admissions fraud, and then appealed, do they tend to win appeals on the basis of further evidence / reasons?

Or in general, is the original decision upheld?

I’m trying to get a view as to whether LAs often make the ‘wrong’ decision, or whether in reality their reasonable suspicions tend to be justified under further scrutiny.

I've had four children go through grammar school and id say the objective test of whether the grammar school is the best place for that child won't be known for some time.

I can think of two heavily coached boys who got into grammar school and after five miserable years one left with very poor GCSE results, one left having failed all his GCSEs. It wasn't the best school for them, their self confidence was destroyed and it is very possible they'd have got better results at the local comp.

The system is very flawed.

I know one case that I thought was very sad but it involved a four year old. Her parents applied quite legitimately for a place at one of the two schools in their town. It was the school her friends were going to. Both schools were fine, distance not a big issue as this was a small town not a large city.

Between the application and announcement of places the couple separated, they were renting a house but couldn't afford it so mum got a flat nearby, not sure where dad went.

Mum moved on the Saturday and the cut off day for address was the following Monday. Little girl got a place and someone reported the change of address and she lost her place. The LA confirmed that if she'd moved a few days later she'd have kept the place.

So little four year old had dad leave, moved house and lost her school place with her friends. I thought that was so sad, followed the rules but not much compassion.