Tuesday 14 June 2022 12:25 AM Family in battle with Metricon claim it sent 'Photoshopped' image to hide ... trends now

A family caught in a bitter legal dispute with a major construction firm claim its builders sent them a Photoshopped image of the newly built home that showed an essential safety feature that was not installed. 

The Barbagallo family's home in Sydney's inner-west burned down three years ago after an electrical fault sparked a fire. They lost most of their possessions, but decided to rebuild on the same plot of land because they loved the area.

They enlisted Metricon, one of Australia's largest and most recognised construction companies to do the build, but it has resulted in years of ongoing litigation, claims of deceit and 'heinous and disgusting behaviour' from the firm's employees.

At the centre of the dispute is an image allegedly Photoshopped by Metricon after the family used an independent engineer to inspect the house.

The engineer noticed the house did not have enough control joints - a continuous vertical joint filled with mortar that prevents cracking if materials shrink. 

After sending the report to Metricon's construction team, the family received an image back that appeared to have a crudely-Photoshopped control joint drawn down the back of the house. 

'They treated us like criminals on our own site. We went to the Photoshopped joint,  we pulled out the mastik (adhesive) and and there was no joint. They knew what they were doing,' Salv Barbagallo told Daily Mail Australia.

'They threatened me with a Supreme Court injuction. The lowest of tactics. This stuff frightens you, I don't have their financial backing. You lose friends along the way, it's sad.'

The Barbagallos - father Salv, mother Melissa and their kids Miranda, 10, and Carla, 7 - said the house fire in May 2019 cost them the 'majority of our things'.

'We're grateful we left unscathed. We absolutely loved our place but found ourselves homeless overnight,' Salv told Daily Mail Australia. 

Despite the trauma of losing their home, they enjoyed living in the neighbourhood and wanted to remain.

'We decided to go with Metricon, Australia's largest builder, who define themselves as the most reputable, most trusted,' Salv said.

'We thought we were in safe hands.'

The new project started in July 2019 - a couple of months after the fire -  with Metricon promising a 32-week build with a 30-day CDC approval. Salv said these  promises were used to 'lure you in'.

During that time, he also gave up his career as a finance executive at the Commonwealth Bank to look after his wife who had fallen ill.

'I quit work to help her out and reduce the trauma to the kids. I wanted our family home back as soon as possible,' Salv said.

'As soon as we signed with Metricon, everything started to unravel.'

They say the early stages of building were a combination of 'incompetence and errors', with the construction crew unprepared to start work when promised.

'The construction manager was a lying person. He was the most disingenuous bloke I've come across,' Salv said.

'I brought in a structural engineer to inspect the site. Within minutes he realised there wasn't enough control joints, and within five days of going onto the site, we worked out there were missing control joints.'  

The Barbagallos say '18 months of lies and cover-ups' then began. After sending a report from their independent engineer to Metricon, they received what they believe was the Photoshopped control joint drawn under a rear window.

The picture appears to show an uneven line drawn from the bottom left corner of the window, with one of the pictured lines continuing over the wooden beams which are some distance from the wall.

'Within two weeks [after receiving the report] he sent us images showing us joints, but he'd actually Photoshopped joints. Then a few days later, he's got contractors who came in and went through the render,' Salv said.

'He said there were joints behind the render but they had to expose them. They cut 10mm through the render and the brick work and what they did was place in backing rod, they'd just put filler over the top to pretend joints were in there.'

The family attended the site two weeks after being sent the 'Photoshopped' picture to find no evidence of a control joint being installed, and recorded a video showing filler being placed into a cut crack to give the impression of a joint.

'The next day the building manager gives me a call. I'd tried to call him six weeks earlier and he refused to answer. I was requesting a change in construction team,' Salv said.

'Over 30 minutes he told me he was going to pull down the brickwork and put the joints required in. I've got the conversation recorded and transcribed. I told him make sure you call my engineer. My engineer said he had the same confirmed by the building manager to him.

'Over the next six weeks, the building manager said he never made those promises.'

In legal documents tendered to NCAT, that have been viewed by Daily Mail Australia, the construction manager responded to claims the image had been Photoshopped by saying he had drawn the lines to show where the joints would be.

'As the locations of the articulation joints were not clear in the photographs, to identify where the articulation joints were installed I drew black lines on the photographs to show their location,' he said in the statement.

'The black lines which I drew were not to attempt to depict

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