What address can I use for DCs primary application?

[SecretMouse]

Very long story short... DC and I live with my mum in city A, 3.5 days a week (thurs-sun) as my office is based nearby. She looks after the kids on thurs and fri whilst I go into work. Meanwhile, DH works full time in city B (approx 200 miles away)and joins us in city A on a fri eve. We then all drive back to city B on a Sunday eve. I work from home mon-weds and the kids go to nursery. Then the kids and I drive back to city A on a weds eve/thurs morn so I can go into the office again.

This set up is exhausting so we all plan to move to city A permanently and DH will commute back to city B a couple of times a week.

I need to apply for primary schools by jan 2019. There’s no way we’ll have our own place in city A by then. So can I use my mums address on the application? At the point of application, we will live there approx. half the week anyway. We have bedrooms there. We don’t own or rent any other property in the area. But we’re not on the council tax and will still own our house in city B (but it’s 200 miles away).

I don’t want to obtain a place by ‘deception’ but I don’t think I’m doing that.

I looked into this and in the uk the address counted is the one registered to the person receiving child benefit. My ex had 50/50 care of his children. Child benefit went to his ex so they had to use that address on the application.

I looked into this and in the uk the address counted is the one registered to the person receiving child benefit

That is not true.

The admission authority for a school is entitled to set its own rules as to how to determine the correct address for a child. Some, but by no means all, local authorities use the child benefit address if the child's care is shared between parents (as in your example). But the LA is not bound to use that address. Simply using an address for child benefit purposes is not enough to mean that it is the correct address for school admissions purposes.

Again, check the local admissions criteria and speak to the admissions authority.

As things stand, it is very unlikely that the admissions authority for city A would accept that you live there for admissions purposes. Lodging with your mum for a few nights a week while owning a home in city B is very unlikely to fulfil their criteria. Speak to them to confirm their stance and check what you would need to do (which is likely to include selling the house in city B).

Prh thanks for saying I'm lying but that was what my ex was told by his LA.

where we are you don't have to give I any documents but they check where you pay council tax so o have heard of people using parents address and being caught out but they where not in your situation they where just trying to get the child into school they wanted. Can you not just move to your mum's then your husband say stays in city B Monday to Wednesday then travels to you Thursday works from home rest of week and has the weekend with you?

You have to check locally. Some of the advice on this thread is absolutely not true for my area. DSis was living with DM when her child started school. None of the household bills were in her name and she didn't have a lease agreement. However, she has a car registered and insured at home, (obviously) her diving license, as well as tax credits, bank account and mobile phone.

Sleephead1 - it’s owning a home in another city that’s likely to be a problem (depending on what the exact requirements in city A are) so OP moving in with her mum and OP’s husband staying behind in a house they own in city B may make little or no difference. There may well be real issues to do with jobs and childcare behind this arrangement, but the problem is that superficially it looks like some of the pretend temporary house moves that some people do, to get a place in their desired school. That’s why OP needs to have that conversation with the admissions authority, to check what she needs to do to comply with their requirements, whatever they are.

thanks for saying I'm lying but that was what my ex was told by his LA

I did not say you were lying. I said you were wrong. Very different.

In your situation, as I said, many LAs, including yours, will use the child benefit address. But they don't have to do so. So your advice that in the UK they use the child benefit address was wrong. It depends on the LA.

lierarydevil your post said 'in the uk' others are correctly pointing out there are local variances. So prh is correct in saying "this is not true* prh did not say you were lying just incorrect by asserting uk wide rules

Panelchair, surely no admissions authority would effectively force the sale of a house 200 miles away in order for an application to be seen as legitimate?! There's no way a sane la could see that as defrauding the admissions process, since no family would commute 200 miles just to sneak into a good school!! I know a family who moved to rent in the peak District while still keeping their former family home in Brighton (rented out) - you surely aren't suggesting that any home you own other than where you currently live is going to be counted as evidence of admissions fraud?

you surely aren't suggesting that any home you own other than where you currently live is going to be counted as evidence of admissions fraud?

If you live in it half the time, and don't have a provable permanent address anywhere else, you can see how it might raise issues.

Panelchair, Prh and I all sit on appeals panels and have had a lot of experience of admissions. We are all saying that OP needs to talk to the LA in city A and get, in writing, what they would accept.

People making blanket statements about "you need X" aren't helpful as each authority is different.

It is exactly as PatriciaHolm says. Different LEAs take a different position on what they accept as the home address for admissions purposes, when a child has two addresses. I’ve been on these threads a very long time and have heard of plenty of instances where an LEA takes the view that if a family owns one home and rents/lodges in another, it’s the owned home that counts and nothing less than permanent disposal of that home will be accepted as evidence that the rental is the address for admissions purposes. It’s nothing to do with sanity - it’s about preventing people from gaming the system by using a short term rental to obtain a school place before decamping back to the home they own. No system is perfect and sometimes families who have genuinely moved get caught up in the rules and have to find a way of complying.

All of this is why OP needs to be clear about this LEA’s requirements around proof of address.

"it’s about preventing people from gaming the system by using a short term rental to obtain a school place before decamping back to the home they own."

I do get the general principle. But if the other home is 200 miles away then this dangee clearly can't apply, because if you decamped back to the home you owned then you would no longer be able to attend the sought-after school! If anything, a place at the school is pretty much the best guarantee that a family wont move back to their owned home. I realise council's don't always operate logically, so op needs to get documentation in place. But equally wouldn't a council have a hard time proving that you were fraudulently claiming to live in the area when it would be physically impossible to commute to the school from the place the council had decided was your 'actual' residence?

The other issue is when are you planning to officially move into a house in city A? If it’s before September 2019 then it might well raise questions about the application and result in any offer being removed. Especially if your parents house is near to an over-subscribed school and the new address isn’t

But if the other home is 200 miles away then this dangee clearly can't apply, because if you decamped back to the home you owned then you would no longer be able to attend the sought-after school

Yes, the danger does still apply. Someone who owns a home 200 miles away might rent near a desirable school whilst buying a house somewhere else in the area that wouldn't get them a place in the desirable school. That would still be viewed as gaming the system.

But equally wouldn't a council have a hard time proving that you were fraudulently claiming to live in the area when it would be physically impossible to commute to the school from the place the council had decided was your 'actual' residence

The council don't have to prove anything. They can make whatever rules they want regarding addresses for school applications. They don't even have to prove that you broke their rules, just that their belief you broke their rules is reasonable.

"Someone who owns a home 200 miles away might rent near a desirable school whilst buying a house somewhere else in the area that wouldn't get them a place in the desirable school."

But you could do this regardless of whether or not you owned a home 200 miles away!

"They don't even have to prove that you broke their rules, just that their belief you broke their rules is reasonable."

That's crazy! So even if you can prove you broke no rules you can still get a school place withdrawn?! I hasn't realised the system was quite so arbitrarily despotic.
Having said that, I'm amazed all these LEAs have the resources to devote to this kind of thing. In my local area the council basically do the bare minimum of checks, and even advise families to move temporarily into catchment if they really want a place, as they have no rules forbidding it.

In fact, keeping a home 200 miles away is a rather better guarantee of not being able to buy a home just out of catchment than selling it :) Nought so queer as bureaucracy.

But you could do this regardless of whether or not you owned a home 200 miles away

Which is why many LAs, faced with a situation where the parents are renting but also own a house, will insist on using the address of the house they own. Which is what we are discussing.

So even if you can prove you broke no rules you can still get a school place withdrawn?! I hasn't realised the system was quite so arbitrarily despotic

If you can prove to the LA that you have not broken any rules the LA would be acting unreasonably by withdrawing the place. The LA needs a reasonable belief based on the balance of probability. It cannot arbitrarily withdraw a place on a whim. That would be despotic.

keeping a home 200 miles away is a rather better guarantee of not being able to buy a home just out of catchment than selling it

That makes no sense. So owning a home 200 miles away means you are more likely to end up buying a house in catchment? Really?

No, I didn't mean that, but never mind. The main point I was making was that ownership of a house 200 miles away is surely totally irrelevant to the situation council's are trying to prevent, which is people temporarily renting in catchment then moving back to their original house but continuing to attend the school. You can't do this if the house in question is 200 miles away! The sale or otherwise of that house is neither here nor there. You said that someone could rent in catchment then buy a house out of catchment, but they could do that whether or not they owned another house 200 miles away, so I don't understand how that affects things either way.

I'm really not trying to be obstructive, I can see that op needs to take steps to make it clear that she has a permanent base in the new town. But I just don't understand on what planet it could be seen as reasonable to take into account ownership of a house 200 miles away in determining that fact. Are you really honestly suggesting that if I get a temporary job in, say, Liverpool and want to move my family there for a year, then the only way to get my kids into a Liverpool school is to sell my house in Brixton, even though I'll be moving back there at the end of the year? If so, that is utter lunacy.

Nobody here is suggesting; we are trying to explain what some LEAs commonly do and, therefore, what OP needs to check with the LEA in question. And, of course, even where an LEA has a policy on how it'll deal with the situation of a family renting a home near the school and owning a home farther away, that policy might not distinguish between a home 200 miles away and one that's just out of catchment.

For a start could you swap things around and stay with your parents Sun-Thurs and go back to town B Fri-Sat so that you are in town A the majority of the week and register there for drs, nursery etc. Although you will need documentation and hopefully have moved there permanently, many of the people identified as being fraudulent are reported by people they know. If you are known to be at and they go with grandma to playgroup etc. plus ideally a few playmates at grandma's house and a few sad that dh works away from home in far away town B etc. people are less likely to raise suspicion in the first place. Do check the admission criteria. Surprisingly for a faith school we didn't have to provide any proof of address - all went on Supplementary application form details and church leader signature.

"that policy might not distinguish between a home 200 miles away and one that's just out of catchment."

In which case it is wide open to legal challenge, because the situation of families moving towns temporarily for work purposes must happen all the time, and access to a school place in a new town cannot possibly be made conditional on compulsory house sale in the old town.

if you sell your house and move in with your mum there is no problem. that should be possible?
when we moved (to East Sussex) we were told that if we kept old house we would need proof of living at new address plus the old house must not be commutable.

Again, what some LEAs seem to be looking for is evidence that the old home is permanently offloaded - some (to gather from what one reads here) expect it to be sold, others will accept a long-term tenancy agreement. Appeal panels have to take a view on what is reasonable, as would (if it ever came to it) the courts.

Just to demonstrate- When we moved into area for schools (from another city 40 miles away) we had to have at least a 12 month tenancy which we had to provide together with proof of the sale of our previous house.