Have a exterior metal double door and this morning the dead bolt jammed and
won't fully retract. The deadbolt is the lower part of a mortise lock.
Tried for an hour and no luck. Call a local locksmith a had a good
experience with two years ago and he said he will send someone over in an
hour or two. Someone came an hour later from "A+ Locks" so he contacted
another locksmith. OK let's try. This guy is a joke. Tried using his
allen wrench to loosen the screws and one screw fell down to the "inside" of
the door. The he tried to open it brute force buy pushing and pulling and
banging the door from the inside, still no luck. I suggested we take the
door pins out from the inside and see if we can loosen the entire door and
he ignored me. Next he sprayed a bunch of WB40 and nothing worked.

Now last year this lock that was originally gold in color is taking on a
dull brown tone on the outside. I took it apart and slid out the mortise
and took it to a locksmith to see about getting a replacement - had never
seen anything like this before I was told, don't know what brand. I went to
about five locksmiths until one old guy told me these mortise locks cannot
be replaced. They came with my original metal doors and probably were made
specifically for the door manufacturer. If I need to replace them even if I
found the door manufacturer (which I cannot there is no marking on the door
inside outside or along the edges) it will be over $200 for these special
locks. So I put it back and did not worry about it then...until now.

So finally this guy went to his car and got his screw driver, hammer and
plier. He jammed his screw driver into the door edge and started hammering,
chipping the paint and caused a few scratches. Then he took the plier and
clamped onto my solid brass handle and I said to him then "if you force it
and it breaks I cannot replace this lock without replacing the entire door",
he ignored me and forced it and "clacked" the deadbolt handle is now loosen.
Only the deadbolt is still jammed. But the handle can turn around and
around now, something is now truly broken in the lock. Finally he gave up
and said to me he will call the guy I originally contacted and see if he can
come by Monday, then he left, without putting everything back, loose
screws, handles, keys, pins, everything still on the floor, I had to put is
back together. While I was doing this, I decided to open up the opposing
door (it's a double door) dummy handle. Once I removed it I can see the
deadbolt protruding from the other lock. It was not sticking straight into
the plate, for some reason it was leaning "downward" a bit and end up
getting caught and not able to fully retract. I stuck my index finger in,
gave it a lift, turned the deadbolt handle, but the deadbolt handle is no
longer connected to the door lock because he broke it. So I use my index
finger and just push back into the other side and now the door opens.

Now I try to remove the lock so I can look closer to see what is broken
(originally and what he broke), only I can no longer remove it completely
from the door since he broke the handle. This guy had no clue what he was
doing, a total waste of time and end up really breaking something.

If I have to replace the entire exterior door and lock, am I just out of
luck or the locksmith should bear some responsibility?

MC