Moving house to obtain school place

[Missycakes]

My daughter is currently in year 5 so we will be applying for a secondary place this October. The school we would like her to attend is a very popular oversubscribed school. We live approx 20 mins away and based on previous admissions she would not get a place as the furthest place they have offered in previous years has been closer to the school than us. Coincidentally my parents love only 600m from the school and it’s very likely she will be offered a place if we lived there. It’s a major step but we have discussed house swapping with my parents (similar sized properties so not a huge deal) so that she has a better chance of obtaining the school she wants. We would like to do this between us without having to go through the hassle of changing the deeds of the house etc. I have emailed our current school with our intention to move. Will I also have to inform the LEA or will the school do that? Will I have to provide some kind of proof to our current or future school to show we have moved?

Does she have an ehcp? She would get priory then even if it's over subscribed.

This site explains how what you’re intending to do isn’t lawful
www.theschoolrun.com/moving-house-for-school-places

@fitzbilly

If it becomes your new family home then there is nothing wrong with that.

You will need to pay council tax and the bills and they will need to be in your name, that is what the school will ask for, they won't ask to see the deeds of the house!

The school doesn’t ask for anything, it’s the KA that deal with school allocations.

Maybe you should draw up a rental agreement to 'rent' your parents house for 12 months for a small amount.

I’m surprised at those who think this is an acceptable thing to do. Would you feel differently if this child got a place by deceit and your own child therefore didn’t get one legitimately? Because that’s the reality of this.

Also op, you need to provide a copy of the private tenancy agreement, so you will need one. Ans it needs to show you’re paying rent, clearly a free house isn’t going to pass without suspicion, the school will clock it.

But then you’re both landlords, or your parents
are, and any income from rental properties needs to be declared, and there are tax implications.

I guess you could cancel the rental agreement as soon as it’s been shown to the school. But it would need to be dated from the time of your move to the time of your school application.

Honestly you’re moving into such a complex area here that could significantly bite you on the arse.

@Missycakes

I’m confused why people are saying it’s suspicious? There are people who rent properties nearby great schools whilst still paying mortgage on their main family home just to obtain school places which is completely above board providing you are in fact living at the property you say you are. I will be living in the property close to the school so my daughter can travel to school more easily as she is of a nervous disposition due to her autism. My question was in regards to informing the LEA and what proof will be required. Everything we are doing to above board.

It’s suspicious because it sounds like you’re doing a temporary and convenient little house swap in order to get a place at the school.

Unless you’ve gone through the channels of officially purchasing the house, it looks very suspect.

You need to be paying the council tax for that property and be on the electoral roll there. Ownership is not relevant, plenty of people live in houses own by parents

I'm also confused as to why people are saying it's suspicious.

If you are legitimately living there and paying council tax, utilities etc, then I don't see the issue.

It's an "unfair" advantage I suppose. However, I live in a town with a very desirable school; the houses around that school are all £stupid because of the location. It's not "fair" that I cannot afford to move into one of those houses to avail my DCs of a place and so am stuck with a lesser school.

It's also not "fair" that others can afford private whereas I cant.

Personally I think if you can really be arsed to move houses and all your stuff, change names on everything etc just to change back again after your DC has got the place, I say good luck to you.

Do either of you have a mortgage on your property? If so you can't just swap houses.

I'd say it's legitimate as long as it's intended to be a permanent move. But you will need lots of evidence that you are properly living there (utility bills, Council Tax, child benefit, GP registration etc). I wouldn't dream of doing it without contacting the LA first (so you have their response in writing) to tell them exactly what you're planning to do and ask what evidence they will need. Be aware that house moves are monitored once your child has started at a new school, and can still be withdrawn after the child's on roll (eg if the school were to let the LA know that you'd moved back).

I was alarmed at some of the responses here and so I did what I probably should have done in the first place and called the local education authority. They said it was no problem at all. Panic over and now my questions have been answered so thank you all for your input.

That's great OP, but as per my previous post I would DEFINITELY ask the same question by email as well so that you have an answer in writing that you can produce later if necessary. Then by all means relax and go ahead.

You need to look at the admissions policy

Most will ask if you have moved house in the last X months (could be 12, could be 6). If you have, then you need to provide proof that you have sold that house or ended your tenancy.

It does seem dodgy that you will be living in a house that you don't own but also don't have a rental agreement. Can you even put the council tax in your name?

If you have genuinely moved, and you have changed the names on the deeds, the council tax and utility bills etc are in your name rather than those of your parents, then it will be a 'genuine move'. GP / opticians registration may not change if they stay the most convenient ones for you.

If you are able to do this 7m before applying for schools then that it good as well. Some areas may have a criteria that says 'you must have lived here for x months before the date of application' - do check that this is not the case.

You might choose not to change GP, but you will still need to update the address with the GP. The OP will need to have evidence of her child's address, not just hers, and an NHS letter is often the easiest way of providing this.

Just live in each others houses. That's what house=swapping is. Apart from people, all you need to move is your clothes and pets.

@Missycakes

I was alarmed at some of the responses here and so I did what I probably should have done in the first place and called the local education authority. They said it was no problem at all. Panic over and now my questions have been answered so thank you all for your input.

Which LA is that?

Has you DD got a care plan from school because if so that should automatically get her into the choice of school you want?

We moved in February last year, right on the allocation deadline for Primary schools. We had to supply to the LA our proof of sale and purchase and 2 x utility bills at the new house or 1 x utility bill and a letter from child benefit.

You can do it IF you do it properly - that is you purchase the property and the deeds are in your name and you relinquish all connection with your original house (deeds in parents name). And you stay there.

When we applied for a primary school place we had moved less than 12 months before the application date and we had to include info from our solicitors to prove we had actually moved.

They are hot hot hot on this (rightly so) and will check.

So no you can't swap houses unofficially and think they will allow an application from your 'new' address.

Also morally you're being a extremely dubious so don't get pissed off with people pointing that out.

What exactly did you say to Admissions, OP?

Get the LA's response in writing so when they say, Yes that's fine, it’s very clear what they are referring to as being fine.

Of course people move house all the time. This is why the LA is on the look out for people scamming the system and can remove the school place, even after the child starts at the school.

You don't need to wait for the new school or LA to work this out, there are plenty of people, even those you might consider to be friends, who would think this is wrong enough to report it. If you are moving, properly move and register the change of address with all the other agencies involved with your child: school, GP, paediatrician, Child Benefits etc.

Your LEA are likely to use your further-away owned-property address for your admissions, even if you are living closer, unless you do a fully-completed sale between yourselves and your parents and are the legal owner of the closer property by the application deadline.

People who own a nearby but further-away property and rent a closer property are not allowed to use the rental address for their application - the owned property must be sold (with sale fully completed and irrevocable, not just SSTC) in order for the rental address to be valid. This arrangement with the property you are living in being effectively rented from your parents (while effectively renting out your owned property to them) is fundamentally no different than if you were renting a nearer property from a non-relation, and renting out your owned property to a non-relation, and it has been established many many times that this kind of arrangement is definitely not valid for school applications.

If you go ahead with this plan, you will either get found out before the deadline and your child will get a school place result on the basis of your actual address, or if you are not found out before the deadline it could be even worse as the place at the nice school can be legally withdrawn because of your deception, and your child will end up with an even more undesirable place and whatever undersubscribed school still has places left over after all allocations are made.

What you probably could legally do would be to set up a family trust and transfer ownership of both properties to said family trust. If you are tenants of the trust and have no property in your own name then it would be valid. It would be expensive but less risky. It would be a bigger "ask" of your parents as they would lose a significant slice of their assets with no discernable benefit to them. It might be more sensible to just legally buy a property that is closer to the school.

"I was alarmed at some of the responses here and so I did what I probably should have done in the first place and called the local education authority. They said it was no problem at all. Panic over and now my questions have been answered so thank you all for your input."

Don't mean to throw a spanner in, but I'd be extremely careful with what you're thinking of doing, OP. Parents in the past had tried this before; it's an old trick; one that had been used over and over again long before your child was born. Your proposal is not much different from renting near a school to gain an unfair advantage over a genuine local and thus denying a true local applicant their place at the school. The 'distance from school' criterion in schools' admissions policy wasn't designed for such nonsense.

And today councils and admissions authorities are not exactly sleeping on their jobs. Well, some may still do by telling you, "it's no problem at all". I seem to remember parents had been taken to court previously charged with fraud under the Fraud Act!. And offers of places at schools were subsequently withdrawn once discrepancies were discovered even the child(ren) had started at the school. So, good luck!