finding an apartment in leicester

We're moving to leicester from the US in August for 6 months and I'm running into some obstacles finding and apartment to rent:
1. I can't get agents to return my emails on site like rightmove
2. It seems like its law that we have to view the place before renting
3. I'm not even sure if we can rent until our visas are complete

I'm trying to secure a place to live so that I can enroll our daughter into school and daycare for our son- its not something that I imagine will be easy at the last minute. But now I'm wondering if its a better idea to just go and stay in an airbnb for a few weeks while we find an apartment and deal with schools when we get there. What do you think? Are there any companies that specialize in helping families find apartments while they are abroad?

Welcome to the forum, nicole728 .

What type of visas are you getting for the UK? The visa type you need may help to determine your best options for how to find somewhere to live.

In order to legally rent in the UK, you'll need proof of your immigration status (your visa) to show you are legally allowed to live in the UK... because landlords can be fined if they are found to be renting to someone who does not have permission to be in the UK.

Hi Nicole, welcome! 

Thanks- we'll have a Tier 5 visa. Apologies if these are basic questions- I have 3 months to figure everything out and I am overwhelmed.

Thanks- we'll have a Tier 5 visa. Apologies if these are basic questions- I have 3 months to figure everything out and I am overwhelmed.

It's no problem at all .

I asked about the visa type, because some visas require you to have accommodation sorted before you apply for them, and for some visas, the company or organisation may organise accommodation for you.

Which type of Tier 5 visa will you be getting?

A couple of other questions:
- do you know which part of Leicester you want to live in?
- have you researched schools in that area?
- or, if you don't know where you want to live in Leicester, have you found any particular schools you wish to get your daughter into?
- have you contacted any schools to see if they can take your daughter (as some have waiting lists), and what documents they require from you in order to enroll her (i.e. proof of UK address)?

What you don't want is to end up in a situation where you find somewhere to live and then it turns out there aren't any places in the schools in that area.

To be honest, I think you may end up having to stay in a hotel or AirBnB until you can find something to rent... but I don't know if that would be good enough proof of address for enrolling your daughter in a school.

As it’s only for six months, have you considered home schooling?

I’m in the southeast and the waitlists are very real.  Hopefully Leicester isn’t as bad.  The council will have an obligation to place in a school, but it can be anywhere in their control (which may be very inconvenient).

I think we need to be in LE1 or LE2. The schools in those areas look pretty oversubscribed and I'm not too choosy, I just need a school that we can get to without a car. We need an address to get into the school apparently and then they assign to the closest school that has space, so I don't think we'll have a lot of options.

I'm somewhat worried that there just won't be any apartments available to rent if we wait too long and we'll be stuck in an expensive airbnb or far away for 6 months.

yes- homeschooling is the back-up, our daughter will be 4 so it would fine, but she's really hoping for a school experience.

When I moved previously, I couldn't get a response from anyone. I had to start looking for a place when I got there. I had to stay in a holiday let.

If money is no object or someone else is paying, there is something called corporate lets.  They'll have a house for you with all the details taken care of and will happily arrange everything up front.

I just googled "corporate lettings leeds" and found a ton of them.
EDIT: Leicester has them as well.