Please help with stressful primary application issues!

[EverydayAnya]

Sorry this is going to be so long and boring. Will try to bullet point.

1. We currently live somewhere out of catchment for any local schools

1. We are trying to sell our house and buy somewhere local but within catchment of schools. We couldn't do it earlier because DH was on a contract job (so technically self employed) and couldn't get a mortgage as he was doing this for less than 3 years (I didn't get all te specifics). His company have now offered him a permanent contract and so it's only now he has been able to get a mortgage for the new house.

1. The house isn't selling and so we can't buy anywhere else. Application deadline is January 15. I just don't see us selling and buying within th next 4 months.

1. I'm having DC2 in 6 weeks and am soooo stressed.

1. What do we do??!!

My main issues are as follows:

1. Can we rent near a school for January and then try to buy a house near it later on? That would be ok wouldn't it as we would still be in catchment?

1. What if we rent near the school for January but then find a house which isn't in the catchment for that school anymore but for a different school (still in same borough) Can we still keep the first place? Would we even get a place at second school as they are all massively oversubscribed? So if it's in June let's say and all the places have already been allocated what would happen to us?

Is it still fraudulent to stay at first school even though we have not tried to be deliberately fraudulent it's just that we didn't find a house we wanted there??

1. Is there a minimum amount of time you can be at an address before it's ok to move elsewhere but still remain at the school. For example if you are in one house from reception to year 1 and then move house surely it's then ok to still continue at same

School even if you're not in the catchment?

I am so confused and unsure about what to do. We are trying to do the right thing and nothing's going in our favour. I'm utterly stressed about where DS will go and where the heck we are going to be living over the next year

Any help and advice would be massively appreciated.

Thanks!

prh are you saying that would be ok?

It should be. There is still the risk that, when you find somewhere to live permanently, the LA will decide you rented purely to get a place and treat your application as fraudulent. The longer you rent the less likely that is.

Arsenic - That was me, not Tiggy. I'm not sure when it started but it has become increasingly common over the last couple of years. Most councils seem to treat it as an absolute so, unless the home you own is uninhabitable or at the other end of the country, that is the address that will be used. Others are a bit more flexible and may allow the situation if they are convinced that the owned home is being let out on a long lease.

I'm in Zone 2 London Anya. Three or four years ago, long leases all around apparently made moving by renting acceptable to LAs. I didn't realise that that had changed, hence my surprise. I suppose they're assuming no-one will be trapped by negative equity in London (or IG ) postcode and so it's reasonable (??)

Oops sorry prh I see. It's as though admissions fraud has become a fashionable cause, isn't it? I'm quite pleased.

It happens a lot. One of my best friends has done it by using in laws address. She is a lovely normal very moral person and yet this just seems like the thing to do to get a school place. There is no guilt.

And that contributes to the shrinking cut-off distances. And on we go

You don't live nr a primary school with initials GC, do you?

Nope

I am not sure a council could block an application from a family purely because they owned a house further away, if the family was clearly living locally to the school due to a new work or domestic arrangement. I can't see how it would stand up on court because of things like open enrolment and the Greenwich judgement.

The Greenwich Judgement goes back a long way (1988 I think) and basically says that maintained schools may not give priority to children for the sole reason that they live within the LA’s administrative boundaries. In other words Greenwich could not exclude Bexley children for example.
That does not stop admission authorities from setting catchment areas though as that is not being specific to another LA.
The situation about blocking an application purely because they own a house further away is not always the case. It is always going to be on a case by case situation and if the parents can show good reason why they are living locally then that is not going to be blocked. Unfortunately there are far too many people who are prepared to try and bend the rules around the correct address to be used, so there is now a somewhat jaundiced view by many LAs and it is much more "prove you are not cheating" than accepting the situation at face value.
Having been in far to many admission appeals where somebody has cheated, been caught and then has the audacity to come and demand the place back at appeal, having admitted they attempted to cheat the system I can understand the LAs point of view. At the appeal it is always but my child will be disadvantaged or distraught at not going to this school so you need to let them in, even though I cheated in the first place. It is no great surprise that they normally do not receive a positive response.