Private school waiting list place and overlapping term fee liability

[Quackingbirds]

Does anyone have any experience on waiting lists - say if a place becomes available at a school you want, do you have to take it and pay both sets of fees for the remainder of the term?

For various reasons, we weren't asked for a deposit in our current independent school. We pay fees monthly. In the event of us moving to another school last minute, could they force us to pay till the end of term? For us, both schools are in the region of 10k a term, and 2 children so a big hit if paying both.

What does your contract with them say or their t&c’s that you looked at when you accepted the place - that is what matters, not whether you paid a deposit. The usual is that you have to pay a terms fees so if you haven’t given notice yet then you’d need to pay the autumn terms fees. They will pursue you for it regardless of whether you think they will or not, they will not set a precedent of letting parents off.

Probably and maybe more, you need to check the notice period in the contract you signed.

Not private school but our old nursery had a notice period of one term from the start of the last term. So if you gave notice in July you were on the hook for fees till end of December. We didn’t pay that as it was unreasonably long (post Covid there was some stuff about unreasonable notice periods) AND they had done such a poor job of looking after our DC that they could no longer attend the nursery or anywhere else. They got the summer holiday club paid and that was it.

Yes check the contract with your current school as it could be one full term’s notice

Did you sign a contract when you took up your current school place? If so check the terms and conditions. For our school, a full term’s notice is required (and giving notice now is deemed to be after the summer term, so fees would be due until Easter).

Really helpful, thank you all. So with a new school, do you pay a deposit or do you pay the whole fees to keep the place?

We arent in this position but given all the movements in waiting lists in london schools, I wondered what we would do in a situation where a place became available once school has begun. But I guess lots of parents would also want to avoid this too so would give enough notice.

You’ll need to check the terms and conditions for the new school, but I’d expect you to be on the hook for fees there too (as well as the deposit) once you have signed the contract.

@Valkirie That's a lot, but makes sense.

As someone that worked at a large all through school in London, this is what we would do:

If you gave your notice in, we would have to ask you to pay the full term's notice, unless we could fill the place. Then we weren't out of pocket (it's usually very easy for large all through schools to fill places). If we filled it, you were ok.

If we were the incoming school that you were moving to, when we made offers, we were mindful you may not be able to start for a whole term. We either had the fees from the outgoing person for that term, or would take a loss. Sometimes we would offer to someone from a state school (if that was an option) as we knew they would be able to start asap.

It's always good to speak with the school to see their flexibility. If you hand in your notice before the last day of the summer holidays, you only pay the autumn term (if they aren't flexible).

Thank you @MyTwoDads, very helpful. We are on small bursary too so we are really hoping that we dont get to that waiting list stage, and make it earlier on.

I'm sure it varies but at all the schools I've had to deal with, if you paid termly, they collected the fees on the first day of each term, even for the very first term we were at the school. So they'd taken only the deposit from us before we started school. Having said that, we were liable for the first term's fees from the previous April even though they didn't take them until the beginning of September.

Our school it was a terms notice otherwise you paid full fees. Nothing to do with deposit. So if you moved a child mid term you’d not only have to pay for the rest of that term but the next as well as you needed to give notice at the start of the last term attending.