Agh. MN went offline and lost a long post!
I had come back to add something in response to these comments from SchoolsNightmare.
The late applicant is a grey area - most LA's allow them as far as possible especially if there is good reason for the delay.
LEAs have to consider late applications ? they can?t dismiss them out of hand. The difference is in how they deal with them. Most late applications will be held back and will be considered once all the on-time applications have been decided. Late applicants therefore only get what?s left over. If there are mitigating circumstances (eg serious personal crisis which prevents the person submitting their application on time) the LEA may in rare circumstances agree to treat a late application as if it was on time, although plainly this will only work if the application is only just out of time.
The applicant who got the school place but never asked for it indicates a mistake by the LA so I would chase this up:
This isn?t necessarily evidence of any mistake, although it may be. On the initial application, OP (presumably) did not come high enough up the admissions priorities for this school and was given a place somewhere else. If for some reason a place became available at the time the late applications were being considered ? someone turned their place down, say ? then it would have been in the pool of places available to late applicants. The purpose of the late applications round is to match available spaces with the children who don?t yet have places, not to shift people up into higher preference schools.
OP needs to investigate what did happen here ? not to grumble about the late applicant getting the place, but to check when the place became available and (if she is top of the waiting list) whether it should have been offered to her. I doubt it, but it?s always worth checking.