No judgment please — has anyone actually been checked and removed from a school for being out of catchment?

[Uptownmom]

Hi all,

Please no judgment — I’m just looking to hear real experiences from other parents.

We own a flat in a good catchment area, which we currently rent out (it’s an HMO). At the moment, we’re living in a different part of the city that we really love and that works well for our family, but the local schools near us aren’t as strong as the ones in the catchment for our rental property.

Our baby is only 1 now, so school is still a few years off, but I’ve been thinking about the possibility of using our rental flat address to apply when the time comes — even though we won’t be living there full-time. I know it’s not the “correct” way to go about it, but like many parents, I want to give my child the best education I can without uprooting our lives unnecessarily or putting strain on us financially.

That said, I’m nervous about what could happen. Has anyone actually been checked and removed from a school for not truly living at the catchment address? Are councils really investigating this kind of thing? If so, how common is it, and how do they check?

I’d really appreciate any honest insight or stories — again, no judgment please. I’m just trying to understand the real-world risks and how this plays out in practice.

I'm smart enough to understand that if someone says something is specifically stating that you must live at the address and rentals aren't allowed they mean what they say even if it is ridiculous to say children who live in rental properties aren't able to get a school place.

If it isn't what they meant why say it?

The poster to whom you were responding initially did not quote the actual admission arrangements. No LA says, "rental flats not allowed". However, many say that, if parents own a house and rent, they must use the address of the house they own.

Work out that people mean the opposite of what they are saying? I tell you what why don't we all just say what we actually mean and then no one needs to make up different interpretations.

They said the policy specifically said no rentals allowed. Clearly rubbish but why do people post misinformation? I will always challenge something that is clearly not true. Others might be happy to interpret what it really means but that's up to them.

I doubt anyone can accurately advise you without knowing the area.

Where I live it's massively competitive - 11+ area but a complicated system where schools will take some kids on exam, some of distance, some on siblings. With added complexity of needing a higher 11+ mark if further away (London) and lower if they actually live in the area.
Some schools have criteria of main and only address for 2 years for being defined local.

Here I have seen parents get caught out and lose the distance places. They have checked such things as GP surgery if they have suspicions.

has anyone actually been checked and removed from a school for being out of catchment?

Not the 'being out of catchment' specifically - it's the being caught in the commission of address fraud that does it. And by now, you may just have worked out that the answer is yes.

@justgoandgetpizzaHopefully you will never run the admissions team at your LA or school then. Rules matter in all walks of life. Cheats should not take places away from applicants who haven’t cheated.

So if you use this address, they'd expect you to put down as your school choices other options in the area nearest your "home." You could end up getting offered something miles away from your real address if the desired option doesn't pan out. What will you do then?

Im in London and watched friends scramble for Fortismere and APS Yesrs ago. I sympathise because it's normal to be concerned about school.options and it is true that many parents are doing the rental thing and seem to get away with it. No one seems to have data on how many people actually get caught.

There are no official published statistics, but some publications occasionally use FOI requests to get figures from LAs. There are roughly 1.1M applications for school places every year. The most recent figure I have seen suggests that thousands of parents are caught using false addresses. Many of these are caught before offers are made, but around 1,000 offers are withdrawn every year when address fraud is uncovered, some of them after the child has started at the school in question.

they will check council tax. Unless you pay it there, it’s pretty difficult to fake.

the only way you could do it would be to move into your flat before you make the application and stay in it until after your daughter has been accepted.

Realistically, you’d need to live there for a year.

i have heard of people renting a home two streets from their own ( and renting theirs out) for about a year.

And that’s still dodgy/ frowned upon.

i have to say primary schools are usually very good. My DC went to an excellent primary in London which took lots of kids from quite a deprived nearby estate. Everyone thrived.

A colleagues daughter lost her school place as he and his wife had lied and said they lived with a relative. He had been bragging for weeks as well that he had pulled the wool over the LAs eyes. She had been in the school for 3-4 weeks when the place was withdrawn.

Friends applied from their house which was in catchment then moved just out of catchment slightly too early - offer withdrawn. The council go from payment of council tax so they knew despite friend not telling them.

Also it doesn’t really work to say “no judgement” - whether people judge you or not
is up to them not you !

If your rental is a HMO, would that not be registered as such with the council… the same council that deals with school applications??

Our LA is one year in advance for most schools and be the council tax payer. Or submit a house bill in your name that address. Any query then other evidence will be needed.

That's not how school waiting lists work. It's not first come first served. The children on the waiting list move up or down according to their priority.

The point is I didn’t need two years of council tax statements to be on the waitlist or to get a place. And I think each school has its own criteria for managing oversubscription, so being closer is not always the most significant criteria.

I think OP's just giving fair warning to save your breath discussing the rights and wrongs; you'll be talking to the hand.

I just struggle to think of any other area of life in which someone would openly state ‘I want to commit fraud - please tell me how likely I am to be caught and punished?’

Do we have posters asking for guidance in committing benefit fraud? Identity theft? Shoplifting?

Are we expected to condone - or be prepared to overlook - school place fraud ‘because of the children’? And why, because for every child who ‘gains’ by the fraud, another child ‘loses’?

My BIL was. My niece was in the nursery attached to the school they applied for. They applied using PIL address and got a place.

Then in the summer holidays, BIL got a letter at PIL address asking for proof they lived there. That’s pretty mulch all it said.

They twatted about for about four days registering niece at the dentist and getting a letter from the bank as BIL was on a joint account with PIL. Things like that, they submitted all that as evidence.

Then they got another letter asking about council tax. Then they admitted they didn’t live there. The place was withdrawn. Of course they had to go back to admissions to find a school with a place.

Of course they had to go back to admissions to find a school with a place.

Under the Admissions Code, parents who have their DC's place withdrawn aren't then double punished by not being allowed to apply at all for the school concerned - they must be ranked again, if they want to be, but according to their actual situation. e.g. a place being withdrawn due to an 'accident in the address department', so to speak, but by the time the attempted fraud is discovered, the DC is actually top of the waiting list based on where they really do live.

I really don’t agree with doing this. We all want what is best for our dc

move back into the catchment area if you want the school there

I know a neighbour who did this. She pretended she lived at her sister's house in a much nicer area, rather than in our neighbourhood in a sonewhat ropier area.

She got away with it (not sure how) but it didn't turn out well. She was/is an anxious woman anyway, but made herself ill worrying that they would get found out; struggling with a long and faffy school run; and then, over the next few years, worrying about the fact that her daughter's friends all lived miles away in big smart houses while she, well, didn't. There was a social and geographical divide to navigate.
There was pressure on the daughter as well, who was asked at the age of four to pretend she lived somewhere else.

Now the daughter is year 6 and going to the local secondary in her "real" catchment area as her mum isn't going to do the whole facade again. Meaning she won't be going to secondary with any of her friends from primary.

Was it worth it? I'd guess not?