Moving home after primary school place offered

[Sajani]

Hi

Before I get a roasting for ‘playing the system’, please read the background!

We always intended to move homes back to the village I grew up in advance of our son starting school and becoming more ‘tied’ to an area.

We were well on the way to purchasing house 1 in March 2020, then Covid hit and the vendors pulled out because of the uncertainty. In August 2020, the vendor of house 2 pulled out when we requested an additional specialist survey following concerns in the generic survey. Last month the vendors of house 3 have basically gone AWOL so we assume this has also fell through.

In the mean time, we sold our old home and moved into rented accommodation in September 2020, in the village we are desperately trying to buy in.

The village has 3 schools, all Ofsted outstanding and usually oversubscribed. We’d have been more than happy with any of these schools, but got our first choice which was the catchment school for our rented address. We tried to buy in this catchment twice and another catchment once, but always in the same village.

We’re now back to looking for yet another property to buy and there’s absolutely nothing of interest in the same catchment. There are houses that would fall in the other catchments (still easy walking distance to the offered school) but the LA won’t clearly answer whether moving after the offer has been made has any effect on the offer made!

From what I can gather from friends, all three schools are full this year. Is there any clear cut guidance on what the position is in this situation?

I know that after the first term is complete that they can’t withdraw a place, but we’re really miserable in this rented accommodation and really need the light at the end of the tunnel of our own house so we’re keen to kick off the search again.

Thank you for any thoughts.

I’d say being miserable about your rented house is always going to be better than being miserable/stressed about not having a school place. Sit it out in the rented until Christmas and then you can relax with a settled kid at a school you like and find the lovely home then.

@Orangedaisy

I’d say being miserable about your rented house is always going to be better than being miserable/stressed about not having a school place. Sit it out in the rented until Christmas and then you can relax with a settled kid at a school you like and find the lovely home then.

Easy to say, but the neighbours make it unbearable. We’ve not had a full night of sleep for over 6 months (and part of why I’m sat here typing this at 4am) and can’t even have a night respite anywhere else due to Covid, there’s no other rental properties and the LA won’t even answer my questions.

We’ve been trying to buy a house here almost constantly for 18 months and I am so, so tired of being mucked around at every point.

Even if they’d just tell me that we can’t move it would be one less thing to stress over.

The LA prob won’t answer questions like that.

Have you accepted the place?

Usually, once DC has started at the school, and you move, you have to make an application for a mid term transfer. Still no guarantees you will get it though.

If the LA won’t answer, then there probably isn’t any clear cut answer, as they would just say so one way or the other So no one on here would be able to help you.

You’ll have to decide - is it worth moving and risking losing the place and all the unsettlement that comes with it? Or staying put til first term is complete and knowing you have that secure for all of the school years.

Only you know. I personally would stay put to secure the school, but from your messages you might prefer to secure the housing and worrying about the schools.

The LA won’t answer those questions because they are flooded with the same questions every time offers are made and, as OP said, people do try to play the system so no LA is going to open themselves up to that.

Once the place is accepted, it doesn’t matter if you move. They have the place.

You’ll be fine I’m sure. Realistically if you find a house now, put in an offer etc, it’ll take at least 3 months to move. Most LA’s are fine if you move a while after the offer. Since your application was genuine, it’s very hard for an LA to remove the place. In addition the LA just give you the offer. From here on it’s normally the school that deals with you so they’ll send out admission forms to complete etc (normally in May). Then you fill them in and return it to the school, and at some point just let the school know if your address changes. Unless there is something in the schools admissions policy itself that says moves aren’t allowed then I’d say you’re fine.

Ps I’m in secondary admissions and once our offers go out I couldn’t care less if a family then moves. As long as their address at the time of application was genuine (which the council checks) any change after that is just life happening and no reason for us to withdraw a place that was given fairly and accurately.

I think you'll be fine - you don't realistically have to tell them you've move before the first term is up because you can have a six months/year address forwarding service.

We moved after a place was offered and had a huge problem even though the commute was no longer viable from our new house and the school we had a place at was higher Ofsted rated!

Sorry just to be clear, the school we wanted a place at in our new town had a fuck tonne of places because it is Ofsted rated 'needs improvement' and the CC still requires three proofs of address changes and a solicitors letter, it was fucking barmy!!!!

The Admissions Code is clear that there are only limited reasons a place can be withdrawn after it has been offered. A change of address is not one of them. However, the problem you have if you move is that the LA may conclude that your original application was deliberately misleading - that you rented in the area to get a place at the school you wanted with no intention of staying there. That allows them to withdraw the place. You would then have to go to appeal and try to convince an appeal panel to give the place back. Some LAs are very trigger happy on this - I know at least one that withdraws places for any change of address, even when it is clear that the original application was made in good faith.

I should also point out that it is not true that they cannot take the place away after the first term. The Admissions Code suggests that this shouldn't happen but stops short of actually prohibiting it. I have come across occasional cases where places have been withdrawn after more than one term. Having said that, you will probably be safe if you stay put until after Christmas.

I'm afraid you aren't going to get a definitive answer on this from your LA or anyone else.

Thanks for all the thoughts everyone, helpful to hear even if there’s no real answer.

I had hoped the answer was more clear, either ‘place is revoked if you wouldn’t have got it in new address’ or the reasonable ‘well view on the balance of facts’.

If any reasonable person looked at it I’m sure they’d see our case, we’ve got evidence of 3 failed house purchases (all with evidence showing we wanted to exchange and the vendors pulling out), we’ve sold our previous property and our rented property should have been fine but we’re desperate to get out due to neighbours from hell (we’ve made the anti social behaviour complaints to the council/police). If some LAs are trigger happy, I’m really not happy to risk losing a space in one of the village schools, when I’d have been happy with any of the equally good options had any of our attempted purchases happened!

I’m not sure we can actually survive another 8 months here as we’re at our wits end, there’s been nights I’ve slept in our car to get some peace and my and my DH’s MH is in the gutter due to the stress of trying to move so many times and the horrific neighbours. I think we just need to hope somewhere else comes up to rent in catchment in the short term and cut the losses with this property.

It’s an absolute bind being so tied to a specific area of the village even though all schools are within a couple of hundred metres of each other, but needs must I suppose if it’s a question no one can answer.

I don't think this would be a reason to take a place away at all. The rules are just at the time of application you need to apply with the address that is your current permanent residence.

But maybe down the line it could be a problem if you have other children you want to get in to the school. If you're no longer in catchment then siblings will not be first priority. They'll do siblings in catchment first and then out of.

If the issue with neighbours in noise then would noise cancelling headphones help get you through to Xmas. I always take mine on holiday with me just in case it’s noisy.

We are in a similar position in that we’ve been here 10 years, wanted to move for primary schools but didn’t, got a place we really wanted from this address but still want to move, which would take us to out of catchment. We were advised to stay put for now by the local authority.
Also our school only has siblings priority if you live within a few miles of the school, and we want youngest to get in tools

@OverTheRainbow88

We are in a similar position in that we’ve been here 10 years, wanted to move for primary schools but didn’t, got a place we really wanted from this address but still want to move, which would take us to out of catchment. We were advised to stay put for now by the local authority. Also our school only has siblings priority if you live within a few miles of the school, and we want youngest to get in tools

Thanks, useful to know of someone else in a similar boat.

We only have one child so no issue with sibling places (but probably looks worse if we moved!), but suspect the sensible choice is just to keep looking only in catchment (as all catchment applicants got in, and then a few out of catchment siblings).

It’s frustrating as I know our current address could be made to look temporary very easily, as it was never intended to be permanent and we only live here out of necessity. But if you look at the full picture we’ve tried to buy 3 times within a 200m radius of where we live and sunk thousands of pounds and over a year of our lives in trying to buy, we’re fully committed to being in the area but a made up line could muck things up!

@beggingforsleep

I don't think this would be a reason to take a place away at all. The rules are just at the time of application you need to apply with the address that is your current permanent residence.

But maybe down the line it could be a problem if you have other children you want to get in to the school. If you're no longer in catchment then siblings will not be first priority. They'll do siblings in catchment first and then out of.

As per my post, simply moving does not justify taking a place away but some LAs do it anyway. If the move allows the LA to reasonably conclude that the OP's original application was intentionally misleading, i.e. that she had rented close to the school to get a place with no intention of remaining there, they can take the place away.

Thanks for your input @prh47bridge, I think we’ll be erring on the side of caution with moving. Although we’d have been very happy with any of the village schools, it’d be a disaster for the current place to be withdrawn if it wasn’t replaced with another school in the village as we can’t drive.

Exactly this. I’ve worked in education for over 20 yrs and have never known an offer of a place/ an actual place being withdrawn.

In sure there are some examples but they would be very few and far between

Jamboree, that might just be a quirk of your area/LA. I work in a primary school and it looks like we're going to have two places withdrawn by the LA this year alone. That's unusually high, but it's certainly not the first time it's happened to us, and we're just one school.

@salviohexia

Do you know what the reasons for withdrawing are?

Yes. One falsified application (a short term rented property where the applicant has never actually lived), and the other a parent who put down their new address when they hadn't actually exchanged before the deadline, but thought it would be OK as long as they'd exchanged by offer day.

Sounds extreme but short term can you find an air B&B or one bed place to rent or anything so you can go sleep there at night time?

It sounds horrific where you are renting and buying anywhere could still take quite some time

Schools can have different admission rules, we have catchment areas and our school states that they can withdraw an offer if someone moves before the child starts school, the cut off point isn’t offer day

We thought we would have the same issue (but we actually bought a house in the same catchment in the end so it didn't matter) so I asked our LEA and they told me over the phone that we would need to be in catchment on the first day of term, so can you hold out until the 2nd September?

@salviohexia

Yes. One falsified application (a short term rented property where the applicant has never actually lived), and the other a parent who put down their new address when they hadn't actually exchanged before the deadline, but thought it would be OK as long as they'd exchanged by offer day.

Ouch, but both of these are situations where it’s quite clear (at least in our LAs admissions guidance) that they have acted fraudulently.

I do feel for the one with the exchange issue as presumably she’s now stuck with a house and no school place, despite having committed to the home. That said, guidance is clear and she didn’t follow it.

We were meant to exchange on a house (closer to our school choice) by the cutoff for moves and the vendor kept delaying. In the end they pulled out entirely, but had the house been in a different catchment or further from the school we’d have had to drop out after that date to not potentially cause an issue with places. It does seem unfair that people have to put life on hold for so long when there’s plenty of people with ‘life reasons’ other than school places meaning they would like to move but I’ve really got no idea how they would police it other than the current system which effectively says move at your own risk, without knowing how big the risk is!