Am I eligible if I rent a place while keeping my house?

[Fiona2011231]

May I ask this question?

My child is in year 1 and we still hope he can get into a better school.

Does it make any difference if we now rent a place next to our preferred school while we still keep our current house.

In this scenario, will the council consider that we are near the preferred school and thus would become eligible if the school has a place?

Thank you

You'd be eligible now, assuming a place came up and no one was ahead of you on the waiting list. You won't create a space by moving closer, all that might happen is that you move up a few places based on a nearer address. If others realised your tactic you might get investigated by LA.

There is no believable, practical reason to rent a house a mile away and rent out your current house just at the time that you are applying for school places.

I suppose you could argue that the second house was bigger and you could only afford to rent it. However, assuming that the council were prepared to believe you, if you then just went back to your old house after a year the council would politely tell you that your child was no longer eligible for your preferred school.

Apart from the fact that the council will know what you are doing because they know where you pay council tax, other parents who missed a place by a couple of meters or because their drive way is in the wrong place will find out on the grapevine and they will contact the council. They also want the best for their children.

Scavola and 3bunnies are right. It all depends on where you are renting and how far apart the houses are. Are they both in the same Borough or not. It would be worth just seeing how long the waiting list is and also see whether there are any good secondary schools in that area as I'm sure you do not want to keep moving about. If you are looking to rent your property long term and you find a tenant looking to rent it for say 3 years then it could work as the La would want to see the time of the rental. They would not accept short term rentals. You also got to consider the likeliness of you getting into your chosen school. If it's very unlikely then what's the point. Even if you appeal in year 3 still no guarantee unless they're is something specific that school can offer that no other can within reasonable distance. I would consider looking at other schools and go on other waiting lists rather than pin your hoped on one.

People like the OP depress me actually.

Go ahead OP and I will begin praying that the next OFSTED inspection sticks the school in Speacial Measures. You'll be back on here then squealing about the unfairness of it all.

Doing what you are proposing will deprive a child genuinely living in the area of a place. If you are morally okay with that ....actually scratch that, you ARE morally okay with that ...go ahead.

I hope you get found out though. I hate people like you, self serving and selfish.

BIL and SIL did this, but in a "fair" way. They rented their own house for 2-3 years and moved to another house near a good school. They really made a go of living there and became part of the village community. They sold the original house. Thought about buying the house they were living in, but ended up in another house almost next to the s hool.

Grateful, it's an in year application. If the school is full, whatever OP does is unlikely to make much difference. If that makes you feel better!

OP, prh47 is a 'legal bod, Oldlady says she is not.

The school / LA are not, in fact, keen to see that you are part of the local community , their priority is that they abide by their published admissions criteria.

Surely you are taking a very expensive, labour intensive high risk approach to this? If you were moving at the time of Reception Admissions you would get a place but you could do all this and a place might not come up for years, if at all .

Have you put yourself on the waiting lists for all schools you would prefer?

Fiona2011231 if the LA asked you what the reason was for the move, what will you tell them?

Are you moving within the area or from one area to a new one a few miles away?

Are you moving from a 3/4 bedroom house you own to a rented 1/2 bedroom flat?

If you are trying to sell your existing property you will need to provide evidence of this and the length of time the property has actually been on the market may be considered i.e if you put the property on the market and the same week/a week later you move to a rental property, it may look a little odd unless you can demonstrate a real need to move out of the property prior to the conclusion of a sale.

Some LA's won't allow you to us a rented address if you still own a property the area. You might find that you lease out your house, rent another and the LA still use the address of the one you own not the one you are renting.

All depends on how many people have already cheated the system.

Prh47

Can I ask you a question? You said up thread that the council don't need to prove anything. I'm really confused as my neighbours have fine exactly this, and I've reported them provided land registry evidence Etc and the council have let them keep the place!!

When I queried it I was told that they couldn't prove they'd used the address solely for the convenience of getting a school place. I can't see how they couldn't come to that conclusion.

Do I have any further recourse?
Before anyone asks I'm pissed off because we're number 1 on the list and the Neighbours effectively have our child's school place because the committed fraud.

Agree with tiggytape. If your child has missed out on a place as a result of this you have a good case for appeal and can also report the council to the LGO.

There is, of course, the possibility that your neighbours move is genuine and they are unable to return to the house they own. It is also possible your neighbours' child falls into a higher admissions category than yours, in which case they would be allowed to keep the place even though if they have given a false address. But if the only reason they've got the place is by giving a false address you have a good case for your child being given a place.

Fiona,

Leaving apart the moral, ethical and legal considerations - in DD's school year, the very first in-year application that was successful (or rather the first child admitted from the waiting list) was in year 3. For all 3 Infant years, no child left, so no space was available to be filled. The child admitted had, compkletely legally, moved from across the country to a house 10 yards from the school gate - but still had to go to another school with places across town for 3 years, because no place arose in that time. And of course, any suibling, LAC or child with a statement could have moved ahead of them at any point during those 3 years.

Fiona, you proposed behaviour is morally indefensible, reprehensible.

Are you not strong enough to stay where you are and fight to make your school better? To help it?

Is this how you normally behave? Run away when you don't get what you want, or when it's a bit tough?

You can enhance the schooling that your child recieves by putting in some work yourself, but you seem to just want to take the easy road even though it involved underhandedness and deceit, and cheats others of what is actually theirs. You're not a banker, are you?

Who can actually be arsed with going through all this faff and wasted money over a primary school place?

Your child will do as well as they are naturally capable of wherever they go to school.