Let me start by stating that if there was any way I could rate the service of this business any lower, I would.

This horror story began when my wife and I found and made an offer (subject to finance & property inspection) on a house we liked and saw some potential in. The offer was accepted, a deposit was paid and everything progressed.

It was all plain sailing initially but after receiving the property inspection report we quickly realised the place was likely to be a money pit and we may have bitten of more than we could chew.

We duly contacted our solicitor to exercise our exit strategy.

This is where the problems began. Our salesman, whom I would dearly love to name and shame but won't because I want to remain professional, stopped returning calls and answering emails with regards to the process of having the deposit refunded.

On the few occasions I caught him (including one where I had to set up an inspection of a property I wasn't really interested in just to talk to him), he fobbed me off with the usual "cheque is in the mail" responses. I still haven't worked out whether he willfully lied to me or was just incompetent.

In the finish it took a scathing email to him with the figurehead (and former owner whose name adorns the business) copied in to get a response. After this I had a phone all from the manager of the Glenorchy office within a couple of hours and a cheque in my hand in 48 hrs.

Unfortunately after almost a month if chasing this it was really too little, too late. The Petrusma brand has been damaged beyond repair in our eyes and would never use them to buy, sell or manage real estate in Hobart ever again.

I dunno, if you don't cop our salesman you might be lucky and get a better experience. If you try them, I wish you luck.