Four estate agencies have teamed up with a mothers' organisation to provide a school catchment area property guide which could be a major influence on how parents look for new homes.
NappyValleyNet.com allows parents buying in south west London to check exactly which schools' catchment areas a property falls within. It works in partnership with Primelocation, Marsh & Parsons, Hamptons, Savills and Douglas and Gordon.
Visitors to NappyValleyNet.com can view their local area with properties available to rent in blue, or for sale in purple. The catchment area of each school is shown as a highlighted circle, with the approximate size of the area shown - so users can see which properties fall within the catchment of which schools.
The search tool also shows different kinds of admission policy the school has; for example, schools with priority areas are shown in a different colour to schools which offer places to any child applying for a place.
Susan Hanage, says the information on the website is being augmented by users' own robust feedback on schools which they've been giving since 2009.
It's an innovative use of Primelocation's relationship with local agents says the portal's spokesman Jamie Jaggard.
So far there is no plan to expand this service outside of south west London.
Comments
Agents who take part in this will be making a legislation rod for their own back. In my view stay out of it.
Very good idea for parents wanting to be in the best chance of getting their children into the best schools, however, I agree with the previous comments. If the catchment area or the school's admissions policy changes, there are going to be a lot of angry parents looking to battle the estate agents "responsible".
Good idea in theory, lets see how it works in practice. Its not always down to the agent to be fully up to speed with ever-changing catchment areas. Some personal responsibility is needed from the parents too.
In an age of CPR I take my hat off to these agents but await the moment when Mummy & Daddy decide to sue the agent when their darling little Chloe and Harry can't get into their preferred school. "The agent told me it was in catchment", "Why did the agent not tell me half way the transaction that the catchment area changed and I was no longer in catchment", "If the agent told me about the admissions policy when I offered, why did he not tell me it then changed a couple of weeks later", "I relied on the information that the agent gave me - its not my responsibility to check that its right - if its not right or I need to check why did the agent even tell me"................we cannot remove all decision making responsibility from the buyer otherwise it will always be the agents fault