I disagree. I have been renting in Oxbridge with the grand total of 7 different high street agents: Savills, Bidwells, Cheffins, Parkers, Alistair Redhouse and another I can't remember. They all included this clause. Only Savills and Alistair Redhouse were professional and caused no problems. Savills was actually a pleasure to deal with, but extremely expensive in terms of fees. The fees were clear from the beginning, though.
The others are, as far as I am concerned total scammers. I won 3/3 cases in the Ombudsman, so I say this for a reason. Cheffins went as far as taking all my deposit to cover some debt the landlord had with them. And of course they didn't tell me. Simply no reply, no deposit. Even the Property Ombudsman freaked out.
Re:My favorite apps on F-Droid
by rahimnathwani on Tuesday July 10, 2018 @10:13PM
(#17503931)
Wow. This is shocking.
I've only once rented a flat in Oxford. It was over 10 years ago, so I don't recall the details, but I do recall having to argue with the letting agent about changing some wording which was totally unreasonable.
Perhaps the situation is different in university towns, where lettings agents often dealing with naive tenants who have never signed a lease before.
Not one of these had included a clause about changing locks.
And also the part about "you will get evicted immediately" is nonsense. The process to evict a tenant takes time: the landlord need to serve notice, then wait X days for a response, then apply to the court, who will then (assuming the landlord has followed the law to the letter) issue an judgement, and then the landlord still cannot have you forcibly removed until some period has passed and they have applied to the court for an enforcement order.
If you have had the experience you describe with more than one landlord in the UK, I'd suggest you look through a different agent next time.