Finding house in school catchment area

[desreb]

We’re moving to Sydney next week, and starting to panic about house rentals.

Basically, we’ve set our heart on Newport/Bilgola, and Bilgola Plateau primary. We’ve targeted the area since we visited a while ago and loved it, and since I work from home, the distance from the city isn’t too concerning. We intend to rent for a year to find our feet and familiarise ourselves, and then buy.

However - there are just no rentals turning up there. I guess it’s to be expected - settled community, too far out of the city for much of a transient population, not much new build for investment properties to rent out...

But it leaves us in a situation where we visited the area and school last year, met the head teacher, had a tour, thought it was great - but may not actually get into the catchment area before the start of the school year as there are barely one or two new properties on the rental market every week.

We do have our heart set there, and I wonder if anyone can offer any tips for getting into the catchment area? I know in London people do things like rent a flat for a year, get their kid in, then move out. I guess we could do a similar thing. We do intend to buy in that area and be part of that community, but unfortunately the moral justification isn’t enough in itself, and we have limited time.

Any tips would be welcome. Also, for proof of address, is it simply a case of presenting a utility bill for the property, or do you have to provide something more substantial?

Many thanks,

D

[desreb]

Hi all,

We’ve been in country for a few days now, and spent today on viewings. There’s nothing at all in Bilgola, it’s just a very static community, and the intake area (Aussie version of catchment area) is very small.

However - we read in the NSW schools guide that the schools have discretion. They must accept pupils from the marked area but they can optionally accept pupils from the area outside. Hence we could potentially live in Newport and go to school in Bilgola, if the school accepted it.

We spoke to the school, and they said that they pretty much don’t have capacity for anyone outside their mandated area. However - they said that some people do rent AirBnBs for the enrolment day, and then move out after!

This to me seems quite surprising - not just that the school recommends a way to circumvent their process, but also that you could get an artefact to demonstrate residence from an AirBnB. Normally this would be a tenancy agreement or utility bill, none of which you’d get from an AirBnB.

Does anyone have any info on how this works? It’s something I guess we could do, but it seems like it wouldn’t work.


D

[Quoll]

Dont get hung up on the school, you'll probably find that the school you are zoned for, once you find the home you want to live in 24/7, is going to be just as good. Find a place you want to live in and go from there. 

I find it surprising that they'd recommend rorting the system too, they'd get their knuckles rapped for that.

Edited December 15, 2018 by Quoll

[desreb]

12 hours ago, Quoll said:

I find it surprising that they'd recommend rorting the system too, they'd get their knuckles rapped for that.

Welcome to 'Straylia

Bilgola seems to have a more local feel and better provisions/understanding of SEND kids, which is why we favour it - but we also want the Newport buzz & cafes, and admittedly that would split us between two communities. Newport Public's pretty good, for sure - looks like we may end up there.

[desreb]

Well, we found a rental on Bilgola Plateau that’s well within the intake area, so it’s all good.

However, I think I can see how you would fake it easily enough. I just applied to move my drivers licence, and there was no request for proof of residence, so I’ll have a licence at my new address soon. I would still expect them to want to see a utility bill, but maybe they don’t.