School application from rented address - nothing council can do?

[StandoutMop]

A passing acquaintance (our dc were at nursery together but now at separate primaries) has moved into a rented house in order to get her eldest a place at their preferred secondary.

Their own home (which they own) is being rented out but they plan to return once dc is in the school, then repeat the rental trick for dc2 (as non-catchment siblings don't get any priority).

I know this is the case as she told me quite happily when I commented about how frequently I was passing her in street and asked if she had moved.

My dc aren't same school years as her's so won't affect me, but seems unfair on those living in catchment to me. (Slightly ashamed to admit this but) I called the council to ask if this was allowed and they told me that it is against the spririt of the rules, but there is nothing they can do if that is what people choose to do, as long as they don't move back before the dc start school.

Really? Do they have no powers to stop people playing the system like this? Seems crazy to me, and opens the system up massively to abuse by those who can afford to rent / move temporarily while local families lose out.

The most oversubscribed counties now expressly ban this eg they say if you own a home and rent another, the rented one won't count no matter which one you physically reside in (unless there's good reason - burnt to the ground etc)
I know one family who "separated" during the admissions period. Dad stayed in the family home, mum moved out to a rented home with the kids.
Fortunately they were able to resolve their differences and get back together after their child had settled in school.

And I don't believe it is that straight forward for LAs to even search for this information. They can't just search the land registry for the names of every parent.

I know one family who "separated" during the admissions period. Dad stayed in the family home, mum moved out to a rented home with the kids.
Fortunately they were able to resolve their differences and get back together after their child had settled in school

Many LAs are wise to that ruse and would remove the child's place in that situation.

And I don't believe it is that straight forward for LAs to even search for this information. They can't just search the land registry for the names of every parent

The LA knows who owns every property in their area. They need that information for Council Tax purposes. It is very straightforward for them to find out if you own another property in their area. And if you apply from an address that is regularly used by people trying to flout the rules or there is some other reason to be suspicious the council may conduct a more detailed investigation to make sure you don't own a property in an adjoining LA's area.

So its ok for a millionaire to buy a house and live in it with the sole intention of getting DC into a school, then six months later selling it and moving away

As Tiggytape says, this is within the rules as they stand. This is why there is a trend towards admission arrangements that avoid giving sibling priority to families that behave in this way.

The only people using money to get school places unfairly are those in the financial position to own a home and rent an additional one on top

Very true. The people who do this like to justify their actions as poor people getting one over on the rich. In fact they are well off and by their actions are generally depriving a poorer family of a school place that is rightfully theirs.

I'm in London and I know at least a dozen families that have rented while keeping their old home in order to gain an admission to a primary or secondary. Often claiming that their old house was having renovations or whatever.

I know of no family that have specifically bought and sold a house just to gain a place at a school. The stamp duty alone would be more than the cost of private secondary education. I do know of lots of people who have been looking to move anyway, usually to a bigger house as their family has grown , who have specifically taken into account the last distance for a favoured secondary (eg Fortismere) when buying, but I can't see how they can be criticised for this. And then at least they're living locally for the duration.

Renting is a far more widespread ruse. I'm with all other posters who are laughing at the idea that stealing places by renting is somehow an ethical crusade.

The LA knows who owns every property in their area. They need that information for Council Tax purposes.
No it really isn't that straight forward. The Council tax register is not the same information as the Land Registry. The person registered to pay Council Tax is not always the same person as the property owner.
If the LA search the land registry for "John Smith", they might get dozens of results. They would have no way of knowing if any of them were the same John Smith, father of Tim Smith who has applied for a place at a school. The school application could have the father down as "Jonathon Smith"
I (perfectly legally) use 2 different names. The name I put on my child's school application is not the same as the name on the Land Registry.
If you own a home in a neighbouring LA to the school you are applying to and the home you are renting, they can't even check the council tax register.

The workload involved in searching every application would be impossible to manage so they don't check routinely. They will investigate some applications but if the parents stick to their guns and insist that they have separated, as long as they keep that rented place for at least a year, then there is nothing that the LA can do. They have limited resources and they can't just spend endless money investigating a family.

It really comes down to how long the parent stays at the rented address. There was a time when 6 months was enough to apply and get the school place offer, now you need to stay for a year as the change of address within a year is likely to trigger an investigation.

The fact that they CAN remove a child's school place after they have started, doesn't mean that they often DO. The longer the child has been in that school, the less likely they are to remove their place - although they can remove the future sibling priority.

Prime,

But the point is that the LA doesn't have to investigate every family. A few common sense filters can cut the job down to an entirely manageable size:

1. The school. Not every school is affected equally, and the problem will be concentrated around certain 'honeypot' schools, so the council can focus on applications to these schools.

1. Length of time at address. The council is looking at MOVES. So by filtering 'council tax payers which have changed over the previous 12 months', say, then the list is automatically much shorter.

1. Known properties: As the council gets better at this process, their workload can decrease, because if they know that rental Property X was used for an application that they threw out last year, a similar application this year can be rejected very easily.

1. Pro-active use of other information: primary schools within a honeypot catchment will know a) the 'habitual home address' of Y5 / Y6 children to date and b) any 'interesting' changes of address within those key year groups. This can be used as a cross-check for information supplied as part of a secondary application.

All these will throw up a 'shortlist' of potential families to request further information from. And it is very clear where the burden of proof lies - it is not with the LA to prove that the address is being used fraudulently, as they can simply deem an address not suitable to be used as the child's permanent home address for the purpose of schools admissions. Instead, the burden of proof is with the parent, to prove that the address is legitimate.

The fact that they CAN remove a child's school place after they have started, doesn't mean that they often DO

It is becoming increasingly common. No statistics are published by the information available suggests that a significant number of pupils lose their places each year after they have started at a school due to it becoming apparent that the application was fraudulent or misleading applications. A much higher number are caught before they get to that point, often before any offer is made. In that case the LA will use the real address for the application. In some cases the parents will still end up with a place at their preferred school and will think renting has paid off when in fact it had nothing to do with it.

The longer the child has been in that school, the less likely they are to remove their place

That is true. The Admissions Code says that the length of time the child has been at the school must be taken into account before deciding whether or not to remove the place. Some LAs will only remove the place if the child has been at the school for one term or less but some will remove the place even if the child has been there much longer.

If you think councils have the resources or motivation to conduct the number or type of checks and investigations some people seem to be implying, you are way off the mark.

Well everyone uses their financial advantage to get their kids a good school place. It's just that some can afford to move permanently to a good catchment area.

Marnia,

The thing is, all you need, really, is for there to be a shift in public perception from 'it's easy to do it, you just do this and it will work' to 'no, there will be checks, it's not worth it, don't bother'.

So even a not-100%-efficient, mostly automated (automatic checks against council-held information, for example) system that nevertheless catches a certain number of people can have a disproportionate effect on people's general decision making: because the costs of temporary renting are not insignificant, it tips the 'cost benefit analysis' quite a bit if the chances of not getting a school place anyway are perceived as increasing.

In 'honeypot schools' areas, I suspect that the council is also helped by a certain amount of public reporting, and as the onus of proof is then put onto applicants, not the council, workload is again reduced.

Paperm0ver

Yes, that school. [eyeroll]
I think it quite suits some schools to turn a blind eye to address shenanigans, because it skews their intake in favour of organised motivated families. I imagine this particular school may also face challenges to their criteria for music places, as it is still heavily weighted towards auditions, ie. children whose parents have organised and paid for years of lessons/youth orchestra/ensembles/instrument practice, which I gather is contrary to the admissions code insisting on testing for aptitude rather than ability.

Interesting that you know people actively opting for the other local single-sex school instead - so do we, and in fact that was the choice we made as well, and we couldn't be happier.

Part of the issue is that around honeypot schools, house price premiums mean that the cheaper housing will tend to be around the margins of the catchment [this is often exacerbated by the fact that such schools become honeypots quite simply because they are in the middle of affluent areas and thus have a 'good' intake].

Relatively well-off families trying to 'get in on the cheap' through temporary renting will therefore disproportionately disadvantage the poorer families living around the margins of the catchment - so rather than being 'an ethical crusade' against the wealthy homeowners in the heart of the catchment, it actually turns out to specifically disadvantage the poorer families towards the margins.

There will always be people willing to take the risk, however good 'detection' becomes. However, raising the cost (through e.g. having to rent a proper family home, rather than a 1-bed flat, through having to rent for a couple of years rather than 6 months, through having to actually sell your original house), as well as marginally improving detection, at least brings the cost of this kind of ruse more into line with the cost of actually resettling in catchment.

I know people who got a y7 into that school by having their older ds in the sixth form after the rest of his education was in a private school. Really can't see the justifications of sibling places going to kids with siblings new to the 6th form. It's not as if they'll be travelling to school together.

I'll be honest with you, this time last year myself and my dh were contemplating doing the same thing. Our ds who was in year six at the time was desperate to move up to the feeder secondary school with his friends, that just so happened to be the only CofE and outstanding school in our borough so it is highly sought after. We live in one town and the primary school ds attended and secondary we wanted him to attend are only 1.6 miles away but they just cut across the next boarder into the next town so we weren't officially in catchment.

We didn't own our own home and were renting at the time so we could have quite fairly and legally moved closer to the secondary school but it is rather an affluent area and rental costs were just too high for us so we decided to stay put and see what happened. It was the longest six months of our lives but in the end our ds got his place so we were delighted. My point is though I can sort of understand how some parents may be desperate to get their child into a particular school and are willing to go to drastic lengths, I'm not saying it's right or anything but at least these parents are bothered about their children's education (not all parents care enough) and aren't simply opting to send their children local were the schools may be dire, I certainly wouldn't accept a bad school for my child and nobody else should have to.

Agony I think the school may use ability as a criteria for their music places as they were a selective school prior to a particular date-a date which I can't remember, sorry. I think this case went to a Admissions Ombudsman and was ok'd, although some slight tweaks to their admissions criteria were suggested, and made. I think it was the change about when children had to sit the banding test.

They've been comprehensive since the 1970s, cos I know quite a few people who went there. Back in the day you could get in from as far away as East Finchley and Islington, so lord knows how the admissions system actually worked - I think there was a bit of a 'm/c parents in the know' kind of thing going on back in the days of ILEA. Interesting that they've found a loophole to keep auditions as part of their selection.

The current insanity has just ramped up and up since the introduction of league tables. It's a really negative thing, because it encourages people to develop a mindset in which certain schools are deemed to be acceptable for the offspring of ambitious parents with the means to play the system, and all schools that aren't the favoured few are considered to be Knife Crime High.

I'm also v. cynical about the music place thing, as it means that certain schools cream off all the best instrumentalists, which has a knock-on effect on the general level of music in all the other schools in the area. It's interesting how many schools have quietly dropped the music criteria once they were no longer allowed to audition.

Agony, Paper, Thankgod and others, are you talking about Fortismere? That school is like a Midwich Cuckoos cult, are we not allowed to name it?!

No, CSG. Though much of the same hysteria applies to F, and people are def still renting flats in those mansion blocks on the crossroads specifically to get child no. 1 in, before moving back to East finchley or bounds green...

If you think councils have the resources or motivation to conduct the number or type of checks and investigations some people seem to be implying, you are way off the mark

If you think they don't it is you who is way off the mark.

Councillors are politicians. When faced with parents angry about others cheating the admissions system they will pressure the admissions team to do something about it. The admissions team won't like losing appeals due to an inadequate process nor will they be happy about negative publicity in the press showing that they are one of the worst councils in terms of policing admissions.

Yes, enforcement varies. All LAs carry out basic checks on applications (which may include checks against the information the council holds re property ownership) and will investigate at least some applications further when there is reason to suspect an issue.

It is not universally true but in general the councils with the biggest problem of parents renting to get into a good school are the ones most likely to take a proactive approach to investigations. As teacherwith2kids points out, it is pretty easy to identify the applications where an investigation is most likely to reveal an issue. Some LAs investigate 10% or more of applications. For others the percentage is lower. But every single LA in the country conducts detailed investigations on a proportion of applications. The number of investigations has gone up dramatically in the last few years as has the number of children having offers withdrawn.