Tell me how this residency requirement works
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Anonymous
| Okay I know there are some eagle eyed, Maryland license plate following parents out there so I'm sure you are very well-versed on all of the laws regarding this. We currently live in DC and our daughter is in a DC Charter School but we really want to move to Maryland. If you move once the school year starts then how does that work? Or another possibility is moving now but renting out the house. In other words isn't it really about paying taxes in DC? As long as we don't sell the house it doesn't really matter where we live, correct? |
Anonymous
| Some will tell you that you have to have primary residency in the city. |
Anonymous
|
Your child must be domiciled (spend the night) more than 50% of the time in DC for her to be a DC resident. Your child must be a DC resident to attend a DC charter school.
Paying property taxes does not make you (or your kid) a DC resident. |
Anonymous
| It's about where the child sleeps. Renting the house will get you nowhere. I'm not sure if the principal has discretion to let you finish the year. |
Anonymous
The law will tell you that. |
Anonymous
|
LOL.
If this is a sincere question, no you can't legally claim your rental property as you home for school residency purposes. That's why they want to see your pay stub, drivers license, etc, and not just your utility bill. But no, if you've already submitted paperwork for this year, you're totally not going to get caught over the next school year. They only check once. |
Anonymous
Wrong. The people living in the house have the right to claim residency for school purposes, whether they are renters or owners. You can't double up. |
Anonymous
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Here is a link for the documents required to prove residency:
http://osse.dc.gov/service/residency-verification The DCPS my kids attended was very strict about the documents and verifying residency. |
Anonymous
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Your child's classmates parents may rat you out to the school and then your child can be kicked out in the middle of the year if you choose not to pay the out of district fee.
It happened at my kids school a couple of years ago. |
Anonymous
Not correct. If you are not a DC resident then you need to withdraw from the school funded in part by the income tax that should have been paid to DC and enroll your daughter in a Maryland school funded in part by the income taxes paid to the state and county. Alternatively, you can pay for the privilege of continuing to send your daughter to a DC school even if you don't sell your property in DC. Otherwise you could rent said property to a family which could claim it as their residence at the same time you are doing so. In short, unless you can make a reasonable showing that you physically reside at both properties (e.g., the Maryland home is used in weekends), you are in violation of DC law. Should there be an investigation by OSSE, although I doubt there would be, they would look to whether you are claiming a homestead exemption on your DC property, where your vehicles are registered, where you are registered to vote, where your driver's licences are issued, where your tax bills are sent, your income tax returns and other indicia of residency. |
Anonymous
| She's already registered for next year because we'd planned on staying but now we're not so sure |
Anonymous
We know a family who moved to MD, told their HRCS principal about it and renting out their DC home, and were told they could stay at the school. |
Anonymous
| We just really want to downsize and move into an apartment but the apartments in DC are more than our mortgage. The plenty of good schools in Maryland but we feel that our child should stay in her current Charter a bit longer period if we could find a nice apartment for $1,500 in DC we would stay but obviously that's not likely |
Anonymous
| What about if you move to another DC residence mid-year - do you have to switch schools? We were hoping to sell and buy in DC this summer but that may not happen but would like to continue looking in the fall/winter. If our daughter starts kindergarten at one school in DC and we move to another DC school zone as early as say December will she have to switch schools? Thanks! |
Anonymous
What you fundamentally misunderstand is that what matters is where you pay income taxes. Where you RESIDE is where you pay income taxes. I think you may have the mistaken notion that residency is tied to property because you're also paying property taxes. But that's not the case. |