Can a primary school place be withdrawn due to someone else's appeal?

[Mrsejmarshall]

This is a complicated one. We moved house out of London this year, and our daughter is due to start Reception in September 2012. Our first house purchase fell through over Christmas, so although we went as fast as we could on another purchase, we did not have exchange of contracts (ie proof of address in new area) in time for the primary application deadline (15th Jan). We applied to schools local to the house we were buying, from our London address, and sent various letters from solicitors etc. with our application. We followed this up with exchange of contracts once we had it (about a month after the deadline) and were absolutely delighted to get a place at the local school.

However, another child who falls within the school's catchment (the school has a specific 'community area' on the map, which they are within) did not get a place. This child and mine are at preschool together, and the mum and I had chatted so she knew we had moved into the area after the deadline.

They are appealing the decision, and are naming us on their application as evidence that the council did not follow the correct admissions procedure. I am presuming this cannot have an impact on our place as we have no control over it.

More tricky, they have asked us to help them with their appeal by providing documentary proof that we moved into the area after the deadline. I really want to help them, but am worried that if we volunteer this evidence, and it is then shown to the prove that the council shouldn't have awarded our child a place, that our place will be considered a mistake and will be withdrawn.

Does anyone know whether providing documents makes us liable to having our place withdrawn? I am really keen to help the other family, but obviously don't want to lose our place. The family appealing have consulted lawyers who said that once a place has been allocated (and we have accepted it) then they can't withdraw it. I don't really know who to ask to get a cast-iron guarantee of this - I don't want to ask the council as obviously it's not in their interest for us to provide evidence!

Does anyone have LEA knowledge that can help with this?? Thank you very much!!

I work in an LEA, and our ruling (and that of the school admissions code, to my knowledge) is that if a place is offered in error (be that due to fraudulent application or LEA error, it can be withdrawn at any time. The advice is that if the child has been at the school more than a term, it is not advisable to withdraw the place.

I'm happy to be corrected on that by someone more knowledgeable though.

What does your LEA say about late applicants? Closing date for our LEA was 15th jan, but anyone who moved into LEA before a date in mid-feb was classes as "on time"- which may be the case here, in which case the LEA were right to use your new address for processing, even though you weren't there at the closing date.

The short answer is no, a place can't be withdrawn unless it was a fraudulent application or within a couple or days after the place was offered in error.

In this case I am wondering if there has been an error though. Some LEA's have a second date, after the closing date that allows people to change address after deadline but before this date. As you say you exchanged and provided proof of this a month after deadline I am wondering if this is the case with your LEA. Does the child who didn't get a place live closer to the school then you? If they do then a mistake has defiantly happened (if everything was 100% right on their application) but if the child lives further away from the school then you (presuming this is the tie break) then it could easily be that you exchanged in time for the second date and were considered an on time application from your new address and the other child simply lives further away then the last child able to be offered a place and was unlucky. I think you need to find this out for the other families sake to save them possibly following a route at appeal that is in fact a dead end.

Hopefully an admission expert can confirm of deny this line of thinking.

I am not an expert but a reader of many admission threads and I have to say that what LoveBox says is not correct. A place can only be withdraw if an application is fraudulent or if a place is offered in error it can only we withdrawn within the fist couple of days of it being offered, test cases have proved that 3 days was too long. There is a little more grey area for schools who are their own admissions authority (VA schools, academy) but in this case, the offers have been out for weeks, if their is an error it is no fault of the family involved and it would be unlawful to withdraw a place.

LoveBox I am afraid because of the case law quoted by our admission Gurus (PanelMember et al), that your Lea seems to be acting incorrectly. Yes you can withdraw a place obtained fraudulently but not one awarded incorrectly, the margin for the later is a few days.
So OP, no the LEA cannot withdraw your place legally if you have been very clear and have thapaperwork to prove this. However, they could act illegally and then you would have to fight to get the place re-instated.

Hopefully the Gurus will be here soon to give their advice.

This is very helpful! They do live further away from us and were told that it was the distance which prevented them from gaining a place. However, as I think I said, the school has a community area which they are within, though they are near the boundary I believe.

I did everything above board and spoke to both my London council and new local council several times (not that the London one was much help!) during the application. Our local council does not say anything about a second deadline in the information I have seen (we are in East Sussex if that helps), just told me to get the exchange of contracts/proof of address in to them asap.

I am still concerned though that by offering our documents we open ourselves up to trouble with our daughter's place. Is there any government agency or similar I can talk to which can guarantee that our place won't be withdrawn?

This is all going to be around the detail of what is in the admission process of the LA. The cut off date is 15th Jan but most LAs allow a period of time for exactly your situation of moving house. They normally specify another date which is the absolute cut off date when they will accept a change of address and count it as an on-time application.
So the first question is whether you managed to do that within that time. If it was after that time and you changed the address, then it would be counted as a late application and you should not then have been offered a place in the initial allocations. The other possible alternative is that it was after the final cut off date and the LA just used your London address. If there were no other applications then you would still have been offered a place. But the other family saying they are in area and not getting a place would suggest that this not what happened, assuming they were an on-time application.
Can the place be withdrawn? Well the answer to that is that different LAs seem to do different things depending on how well read they are on admission law. Those that are well read will know that there have been a number of court cases and that the time span between the offer of a place and the withdrawal of the place is an important factor. 3 days is the most widely quoted case when the time span was considered to long. The problem is that quite a few LAs use part of paragraph 1.50 in the 2010 admission code to justify the removal of a place if a mistake has been made. My view is that they should not be doing this but that it is the other family that have been disadvantaged and therefore they should be awarded a place at the school by the LA which they can do or ask the family to go to appeal where the LA will admit the fault and let the panel award a place.
If the other family are quite clear about naming you in the appeal, then they should already have raised the issue with the LA admission office and received an explanation. The LA will be required to investigate whether a mistake was made and to also give details of the situation to an appeal panel, given their appeal is based on such specific information, so I do not believe that there is any need to tell the other family when you moved in. One of the admissions key tasks is to confirm as far as possible that the admission process was carried out correctly, having a specific allegation at appeal will clearly mean that they want chapter and verse on what happened.

It could be that the date of moving in is not necessarily the key date because some LAs accept written confirmation of contracts being signed as the key date. It is also possible that the family concerned were late applications themselves, in which case they would not have had precedence over you.
If you could say online or PM me the LA involved and the school I can look up what the detail is and see if that helps to resolve your dilemma. I would not under any circumstances contact the LA as you are just asking for trouble if you do that.

I would think it unlikely but I would want ph47bridge or admission or one of the other experts who frequent these boards to check. Good luck you are in an awkward position.

What a bugger of a situation to be in! My sympathies OP. I would decline to provide evidence to the parents because the LEA already has it and it would be revealed during the investigation anyway. I bet they are trying to push the admissions dept into creating an extra place for their child.

School admissions is a cut throat business :(

I see you are in east sussex. They say that it is the date of exchange of contract that is important. However their advice on changing address is pretty hopeless and could me anything. It says

^Should your circumstances change after the closing date, such as you
move house, but you want to keep the same preferences you should tell
us as soon as possible. For most parents the decision will still be based
on the information we held about you by the closing date. Sometimes we
may consider your application differently, especially if the address you
were living at before the closing date was a temporary one and you move
further from your preferred school. ^

That implies that they will not accept any change of address but it is not explicit, what does "for most parents" mean. I wonder whether you told the LA before the cut off date of 15th Jan your new address and said you will confirm exchange date later and they have put down the new address making it an on-time application from the address you were moving into. Or they just accepted the new address when it was furnished given that the above quote is anything but explicit.

Could you say when you told the LA, when you exchanged contracts and when you actually moved in?

Thank you for messages of both general support and also very informative material.

Admission, here are the details & dates of our application. Apologies, there's some repetition from my original post as I just wanted everything to be clear. Am very keen to get your expert knowledge on this!

I told the LA prior to the application date that we were in the process of a house purchase but also that I had no way of exchanging contracts in time as our original purchase had fallen through and we were now in a rush. This would have been in the first week or so of January, when our offer was accepted on the house we have now bought.

In my application (for 15th Jan) I included a letter from the solicitor confirming we were buying the house, our mortgage offer and memorandum of sale, as well as writing a cover letter to East Sussex explaining that the sale was proceeding as quickly as possible and I would send exchanged contracts once we had them. As mentioned, I applied to East Sussex schools via my old LA in London.

Exchange date was 13th Feb and I emailed a letter from our solicitor, confirming contracts had been exchanged, directly to East Sussex.

I think they must have counted the application as ontime and at the new address. I'm just not sure that is totally lawful according to their procedure and this is why I'm worried if we get embroiled in the appeal that it could be withdrawn.

I also don't quite understand the issue about the family raising our application directly with the LA rather than as part of the appeal process. I don't think they have done this. Should I advise them to? Presumably this would negate the need for our evidence in their appeal?

This advice is much, much appreciated.

Sorry, just saw you wanted actual move in date too. That was 23rd Feb. I have assumed they are working on exchange of contract which they always said was what was required for proof of address.

Sounds like your LA's info is annoyingly wooly, but if it's any use - where we are (and in many other London boroughs), the second deadline is 17th Feb, which is for 'late with good reason' applications e.g. if you've moved house, which will be treated as on-time. It sounds like this is what your LA has done - as your exchange date was within a reasonable time after the first deadline, you've been treated as late with good reason. Which seems right to me. We were in a similar situation but just missed the Feb 17th deadline so are now a proper late application. Sounds like you made it in time and should keep your place.

I would not enable their appeal. Let them find the info for themselves. Why is it YOUR childs place that stopped them getting one?

I agree with Kilmuir...whether you know them well or not it's nothing to do with you and is putting you in a very awkward position. ...and yes, why is it YOUR child's place that's scuppered them?

havng read your OP again, I am even more convinced that you need to make sympathetic noises and put off giving her the paperwork she is asking for...the LEA were satisfied by your solicitors letters...that's enough and she is pushing boundries by asking you to help.

I think it is fairly clear from your post that the LA have either taken your January application with the new address or your 13th Feb exchange date as being an on time application and the wooly nature of their process would appear to deem this to be their decision as to whether they count it as on time or not. I suspect that if pushed the LA will say that they unofficially give people a month's grace to get the info in, which is what many LAs say officially in their admission process but in this instance they are keeping close to their chests.

As such you were an on-time application and were offered a place in the original allocations. I presume that your address does fall within the community area and were considered as such in that admission criteria. As the final defining criteria for order is distance and the other family lives further away but still inside the community area they would have been behind you in the criteria order. It is quite possible as tiggytape says that you were not the last person to get a place, it will all be around the distance criteria.

Normally if a family believe that they have been disadvantaged the first thing they would do is complain to the LA admission office. If they have consulted a solicitor, even if they were not an education lawyer, I would have thought the first reaction they would have is to lodge a complaint with the appropriate authority, that is the LA.

I suspect that the other family have talked to the LA and that they know that the LA are saying your application was accepted as on time. They are trying to build a case for the appeal and by giving them the date of exchange you are giving them more info to build that case. So I would decline the request and tell them you were deemed to be an on time application by the LA. Getting involved is just going to drag you into something that is not your problem and can only lead to more potential risk of you losing this school place. Let them argue the case at an appeal and leave the problem with the appeal panel to decide.

Yep. Also agree with TheHouse and with Kilmour. Sympathy for their predicament but not get involved.

We also had a skin-of-our-teeth acceptance. Seems the school has to fit in every child in the catchment area. It's a bugger for the school, that's for sure.

Agree with Kilmuir, I sympathise with their situation but it's unfair to ask you to knowingly jeopardize YOUR child's place in order to accommodate their child.

I would simply say that you can't risk it and that they should proceed without any paperwork from you. You sound like you're really trying to do the right thing but this all sounds too woolly to me. I would back off.

Another point is that the date you exchanged contracts is a matter of public record - you can apply to the land registry and find out when that happened. Clearly their solicitor is not all that clever or s/he'd have done this already.

Another that says don't give paperwork. This is NOT your problem. I know will be uncomfortable with other Mum but she is putting you in a horrible position. Absolutely NO..

For Infant Class Size appeals the family need to prove that the LEA have made a mistake and that this means their child should have been offered a place. My interpretation would be that the LEA mistake would have to be regarding their application and not that of another child so I do not think there is a case to answer here.
Agree with the others, there is no need for you to supply paperwork to them -you have already supplied everything needed to the LEA and acting correctly by doing this. It really is unfair of this family to place you in this position.

I think they consulted a solicitor initially but are not using one to put the full case together for them - I'll suggest they apply to the Land Registry as that might be a good way to get the details without us having to get too involved.

We are the furthest family to get a place, though we are quite a bit nearer the school than they are, so they do have reason for feeling like we knocked them out of the way. However, there is another child who lives near them who also didn't get a place, and I don't know which of them lives closer - it might have been the other child who would have got the place if we hadn't been here.

I don't actually mind getting involved in the appeal as long as there is no risk to our daughter's place...but it sounds like it is hard to place any assurance on that. Just because the LA shouldn't withdraw our place, doesn't mean they won't, and I do worry that by volunteering documents about our application we make ourselves vulnerable.

I think I will see if they can get the information they need from the LA and the Land Registry and then can use us in the appeal without our actual involvement. I don't know if they have complained to the LA or asked them to investigate our application - I know they were abroad when they heard about places and had to launch their appeal from there, so it could be that they just missed that avenue or didn't realise that they could go down that route.

Or admission could be right - they know the LA considered us to be ontime, but they don't and they want proof of that to take to appeal. Don't fancy getting involved under those circumstances!!! Seems unlikely though, knowing the family. Also I can't imagine mentioning us would help their appeal if the LA have already justified our application.

I really appreciate everybody's messages, thank you! Lots of helpful advice - thanks very much.

You did everything above board and you live closer to the school than them.

It is a bugger for your friend, but no way would I be providing any paperwork. Although your place appears secure, I would not get involved - playing with fire IMO. I don't think you should be seen (by the council) to be participating in a case against the council.

I can't see how they could withdraw your place. Even if a mistake were made it would be their mistake - you provided all the relevant and correct information as soon as you could. You did not withhold information or tell any lies. It would therefore be unreasonable to withdraw your place once offered. Of course some LA's are a law onto themselves!