Vendor won't exchange, advice

ChumpusRex

Lord_Baltimore wrote: »

Another stupid question - could you rent somewhere temporarily in the new catchment area to qualify?

Some LAs are wise to people renting houses in popular school catchment areas.

A number are now requiring that the tenancy agreement is for a minimum of 3 years without a break clause to be considered for school eligibility.

It's important to check the rules in your area of interest.

Lord_Baltimore

ChumpusRex wrote: »

Some LAs are wise to people renting houses in popular school catchment areas.

A number are now requiring that the tenancy agreement is for a minimum of 3 years without a break clause to be considered for school eligibility.

It's important to check the rules in your area of interest.

Fair comment. The OP too has suggested as much. Oh well, it was just a thought.

TheCyclingProgrammer

ChumpusRex wrote: »

Some LAs are wise to people renting houses in popular school catchment areas.

A number are now requiring that the tenancy agreement is for a minimum of 3 years without a break clause to be considered for school eligibility.

It's important to check the rules in your area of interest.

I have emailed the admissions team to check, but the admissions booklet simply says a tenancy agreement will be accepted as proof of address. No set length or anything about needing to be there when school starts.

To be fair, it's not like we are moving there just to get a place and then moving away again. The house we are buying is round the corner so we will be genuinely living in the catchment.

6feet

TheCyclingProgrammer wrote: »

Thanks. We need to wait and see what the LA requirements are as I've read that some require you to have at least a 12 month tenancy or still be living at the same address come September. This could make the option a moot one.

yes, so get a 12 month tenancy with a 6 month break clause in it. You can change your address before September if the address change is still in catchment.


This is advice given from someone renting in catchment for grammar schools currently and now that DD has passed the 11+ we are looking to buy in catchment....once we get her grammar school allocation the 2nd of March.


Our break clause is ready to be broken in April :>)

TheCyclingProgrammer

So a small update...spoke to the EA and our vendor is out again today to view a property. He decided not to mention any higher offers to her because he feels it won't make any difference. I did say to him to only suggest it if he felt it would make a difference. I feel like the EA has done everything he can but is out of options now.

So we have little choice but to hold tight.

We are viewing a rental property literally round the corner from the new house on Monday. It's about a 5 minute walk away. Available in January but I don't have an exact date yet. I've told the letting agency we would need a 6 month break clause otherwise there's no way we can do this.

The rent is £870/month, £170 more a month than what we currently pay. Also, best case scenario is that once we are ready to exchange, we can delay completion to early April at most, which would be in our third month of tenancy.

So we would be looking at 3 months of overlapping rent and mortgage payments. With letting fees, I reckon the whole thing will cost us about £3500, so pretty much eating up our stamp duty savings. We can of course try and negotiate an early surrender to save a few months rent but that's no guarantee and would depend on another tenant being found.

I've emailed my contact at the admissions department outlining exactly what we want to do. We need to wait and see what they say before doing anything.

lil.smartie

Do you need your daughter in school in Sept? Legally she's not obliged to be there due to her age. You could find a good local nursery that will let her go there whilst waiting for a place, or if possible home educate?

Kate

TheCyclingProgrammer

lil.smartie wrote: »

Do you need your daughter in school in Sept? Legally she's not obliged to be there due to her age. You could find a good local nursery that will let her go there whilst waiting for a place, or if possible home educate?

Kate

It wouldn't really change anything. We could keep her out of school like you say but any application to start the following year would likely be treated as an in year admission for Year 1. She would still only get a place wherever one is available. I'd rather not keep her out of school and I don't agree with home education.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Had an email from the letting agency with a copy if their tenancy agreement. Looks fairly standard to me, it's been a long time since I've rented through an agency though - wow, their fees are extortionate. £60 admin and £114 referencing fee for EACH of my wife and I. And another £60 check out fee. What a rip off.

Anyway, she thinks the landlord would agree to a 6 month break clause that lets us leave after 8 months which isn't what I've asked for. Surely the point of a 6 month break clause is so we can leave after 6 months having given appropriate notice?

Better_Days

Actually those fees aren't that bad, not a lot of consolation I know.

Have seen much worse.

Ask for a list of all the fees so there are no nasty surprises. Also for a copy of the contract that you will be asked to sign with the break clause - you can then post the break clause on here if you wish and receive advice as to what it actually means (from threads I have seen here on break clauses it is not always clear and the LL, LA and tenant may think it means different things). You need clarity before you sign.

TheCyclingProgrammer

Better_Days wrote: »

Actually those fees aren't that bad, not a lot of consolation I know.

Have seen much worse.

Ask for a list of all the fees so there are no nasty surprises. Also for a copy of the contract that you will be asked to sign with the break clause - you can then post the break clause on here if you wish and receive advice as to what it actually means (from threads I have seen here on break clauses it is not always clear and the LL, LA and tenant may think it means different things). You need clarity before you sign.

Thanks, yes, I've done some research on break clauses and it does appear a lot of them are poorly worded or ambiguous, probably due to multiple copy and pastings from other contracts. I will definitely get advice.

Anyway, its still not certain we will go for the renting option. It is a huge expense - yes, its covered by our stamp duty saving but that was also going to cover some of the repairs on the new house that are needed (vendors wouldn't come down in price) with several grand left over for some nice to haves like a new shower room and re-plastering work. And that's before you even consider the huge disruption of moving twice.

The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to think that even if our daughter didn't end up in the best school in the world, she would still do well - we would make sure of that by providing as much additional support and education at home as we can. And we still may get her into one of the schools we want on the waiting list.

We'll give it some thought over the next few days but honestly I'm starting to lean back towards staying put, trying to relax, stop stressing and just wait for our house purchase to complete.