School have revoked offer - not sure what to do next.

[Anxsi]

I'd like some advice and guidance on school admissions and appeals please.

My child is due to start secondary school in September, but the school revoked their offer on the basis that we were not living at the address used in the application.

We had been looking to buy a property in a particular area and completed the purchase earlier this year. We kept the council informed, and once we completed the purchase, our child was placed at the top of the waiting list for this school.

However, we haven’t moved in yet because the house needed repairs, which are longer than we anticipated & it would have been difficult & unsafe to live in the property while the work was being done.

The school discovered that the house was vacant and called us to clarify the situation. I explained that the house required refurbishment and that we had not yet moved in.

The school then withdrew the offer on the basis that we were not currently living at the address. The school said our child would remain on the waiting list and would move up once we had moved into the property, but couldn't give any indication of when he might be admitted, as it would depend on a place being available.

The school has said that we have the right to appeal, but I’m unsure whether it would be worthwhile. I don’t want to damage our relationship with the school any further.

I’d really appreciate some advice on what we should do next. Please be kind - my DC no longer has a secondary school, and its very stressful.

You were naive not to consider how this looks to the school, who have hundreds of applications and who have no idea nor do they care how long you have been looking for a house and whether you can afford it or not. On the face of it, you have bought a house and not changed your address on anything, you still live in your old home and are seemingly making no attempt to move into the new home well after the purchase date - have you even sold your existing home or given notice on your rental agreement, whichever is appropriate?

Not an expert but I agree with others - you need to move in. Into a caravan on site, or get a basic working kitchen, lavatory and two bedrooms habitable and move in.

So we wanted an out of catchment school. We rented our house out and moved to the area next to the school in jilt of year 5 with no intention to go back to the old house and have stayed renting now for two years.
Youve left it really late I think for any other option such as renting a property in the area while tour house is renovated, your only option is going to be to move in, like this week as there is only about two weeks left before they stop dealing with application issues and then break for summer. Its not the LA who will break, its the school and the LA eont get an answer from the school until way into september.
You literally need to move in this week for a hope in hells chance to turn this around.
Someone else is going to be given that place and then youre going on that waiting list and if its over subscribed you could be waiting a while.
You need to be calling the council and talk to the school and say you are moved in and be moved in, this week. And have all your bank, chikd benefit, drs surgery all moved over.
Our school checked the drs, we had to get a letter too.

Campervans can be hired that you could park on the drive. But the main issue will be that you still own your old house. The reason why some councils allow for exchange of contracts being the trigger is that they expect that's irrevocable commitment to a move very shortly afterwards, on completion.

Honestly, even if you had moved in, still owning your old place might well have been a problem.

I lersonally think its getting too late in the day to sort for september start based on our experience of dealing with admissions late in the summer term.
If op moves into a campervan she could end up being there all summer and into winter.
Best bet now is probably get any school place allocation you can, move in when the works are done and then go kn the waiting list.
Hoenstly I picked apart the admissions criteria word for word and tbe council admissions, went on forums and did hours of research and concluded the only conclusive way to ensure a place was to move part and parcel by end of year 5. Which we did and are still financially reeling from it two years on. All other options were so risky and could end up with no place.

Honestly OP I think you've had the overwhelming response of "you need to just move in". We can believe that you have every intention of living there and that this was in no way an attempt to play the system, but the reality is that the school will not be able to take a chance on that while you continue to not live in your new home. It's striking that despite all the responses advising you to move in your replies appear to avoid acknowledging this. I do hope you get the outcome that you want in the end.

You could buy a place and then say this is your main residence, when it is not. Or change your mind about moving in. If you haven’t sold and this is a second property, then this is exactly what they are trying to avoid. When you move in things will change, as they have already stated.

If you've completed on your new home but are still living in your current home what is the plan for current home - presumably you haven't got buyers waiting around for you to move in. Is it on the market? How far away is it from the new home because if there isn't an intention to sell the current home, could the LA take the view that this is a fake set up (beyond how it already looks)?

ETA or are you renting current home?

I doubt an appeal would be heard until the autumn term now. As far as the panel is concerned it really depends on whether they prefer your version of events or the council’s. I doubt they would have much sympathy as you still have your other property.

I did hear a case once as a panellist where a family were unable to move in due to a series of disasters but they were renting and it was a totally unforeseen situation and fully documented.

Appeals are about have they applied the rules correctly. In your case, it sounds like they have.
I would put all effort into moving in asap, not appealing. Get it liveable in days and get in, let it be finished around you.

Echoing everyone else who says you need to move in now and then tell the school so it can all be updated before everything shuts for summer. You’ve got nothing to lose by appealing as well although your chances of winning is going to be answered by the experts here.

But if you’ve applied for an oversubscribed school then yes they were very strict with this. Plenty of parents have and will game the system so they have to be strict. I know you didn’t intentionally deceive them but they have to draw a line somewhere.

When DD2 was starting secondary at a selective, they asked us for the land registry document of the house. Yes really.

You need to know how Admissions will consider your current home before you move into a building site.

They may not consider your new property as the child's home until the old one is disposed of by sale or it is contractually rented out. Good luck.

You can appeal but it's unlikely you'll be heard before September.
You're literally not living in the house. You own the house no argument there. But you weren't living in it when you applied and you still aren't living in it.

The thing is you could just be someone who buys a house to apply and sells it once the child starts school. (The empty house was likely seen by someone in school.) The school rules are there to avoid that scenario.

Appeal but basically you can't prove they aren't following the admissions policy so you'll be wasting everyone's time. Move in and go on waiting list.

Where are you living though?

You must be living somewhere and you haven't been clear where that is.

Where are you living? Are you paying council tax on two addresses?

So have you bought a second house in addition to the one you already own? Why would you not have disposed of your current house if you've bought a new one, the bank won't usually let you hold multiple mortgages unless they are buy-to-let?
You're being a bit evasive. It's not normal not to sell your current house when buying a new one.

Right.

So you never actually intended to move to the new house before the end of this term? Because it would be too far from the current primary school?

The distance of the current primary will have alerted the school to the fact that you actually live far away.

I think that’s not quite right- OP applied from her “old” address and then updated the address when she completed on the new house, at which point she (seemingly) lived close enough to be first on the waiting list and hence got in. Many people moving at this stage would be driving their child back to the “old” primary for half a term rather than moving them. So the council would have known about the primary school. The issue is the uncompleted move.

Then you need to move in (again, camp if need be!) and do whatever you need to get the proof of address for the school. You’ve got council tax but move your doctors, dentist, tell the primary school the new address, register to vote, tell the bank etc.

it might be hideous for a few weeks, but you do this or give up your preferred school.

Do it all this week so you have a chance of getting a place again at your preferred school before the term ends. As PP have said, if you move in (and get proof you have!) you should be top of the list.

OP, before you start camping without water, you need to understand from the LA if they will accept your new address when you haven’t sold/stopped renting your old house

@Anxsi I an afraid I agree with others – you don’t live in the house (and you never have?) so the LA is allowed to do what it has done. You must see that if discretion and flex were allowed, it would make the system unworkable. If one of the criteria is that the child must be living in the house on x date, and your child is not, then if the school flexes and says “well that’s fine, we won’t apply that rule strictly” then someone else who lives closer than your DC misses out on a place.

We understand that you did not mean to fiddle anything; but knowing the timescale in terms of admissions I have to say I would have moved in at once and renovated. I know people who have lived through massive kitchen extensions, loft conversions and worse. Anyway what is done is done.

The house you live in now – is it you original home that you still own and have not sold? Or are you renting? If the latter, surely you just yes, check with the LA about whether you will get a place and then if yes, give notice on the rental and move now. If you have another property to sell, again you can put it on the market and move, tho in some LAs, owning another property (that you might bolt back to) is viewed with some suspicion.

I agree with others, move in. You can appeal, but you'd have to appeal on the grounds of prejudice, so you'll need to come to with a strong list of reasons why your DS needs the place, and locality and convenience is not one of them.

Most Admissions policies are really clear that it has to be the child's main address with all bills registered there and that you have to actually be living there. Not surprised the school rejected it, especially if it's oversubscribed. Is the new house actually suitable accommodation for you or so run-down that it's not plausible that you're going to live there anytime soon? The school will be alive to every scam in the book including people buying a one bed flat or derelict house and claiming to live there but never actually moving in. People try all sorts to get into a good school.

from an admissions point of view they take the property you are residing in as the primary property.
unfortunately as you still have hold of this property this will go against you even if you are planning to move into the other one. They have to take that into consideration. What timescale have you got to cut ties to this property?

It's pointless moving in to appeal because you are then living there.
The offer was revoked because you didn't move in and live there but led them to believe you had. You can't claim maladministration.

You need a compelling reason why the school is the only one your son should attend.

We withdrew an offer from a parent that claimed to have moved into a house by the deadline but hadn't (they actually moved in 3 weeks later). She went to appeal because she had moved by offer day and got short shrift from the panel.

"You need a compelling reason why the school is the only one your son should attend."

This isn't entirely accurate. You need reasons why your DS needs a place at the school, which outweigh the reasons that the admitting authority gives that the place should be denied. This is why nobody on any forum can tell you what will succeed at appeal, only what has a better chance of succeeding. Two people can have exactly the same grounds of appeal that are equally as compelling in their own right. But if one school is 'full' yet can't demonstrate that it would be compromised by taking another child, the appeal will succeed, and if another school shows that it is full and there would be real problems if it were to admit another child, the appeal will fail.