Financially broken and physically hurt: Young family caught up in Adelaide Exposed Concrete failure

A young southern suburbs family was forced to remortgage their home to afford a $24,000 driveway that was never started.

• Concrete business owner hit by more fallout

A young southern suburbs family who remortgaged their home and paid nearly $25,000 for a driveway have been left with skinned knees and nowhere to park their cars after exposed mesh has posed a “dangerous” hazard.

Kellie and Daniel Barratt have been building their Onkaparinga Hills home for nearly two years, and it was May last year that they reached out to concreter Shane Lynch and his company Adelaide Exposed Concrete (AEC).

“We’re in a new build, in a split-level home, which is, we’ve realised, quite expensive to get concreting done,” Ms Barratt said.

Kellie and Daniel Barratt, and Kellie's 8yo daughter Amelia Frawley. For two years the family has not had a driveway. Image/Russell Millard Photography

“We ended up remortgaging our house to be able to afford to get the concrete done, and once that went through we contacted AEC.

“They came out and we’d struggled with getting reliable contractors and they came out really quick, the invoices were super detailed which we thought might be a great thing.”

The couple were told work would start in November, but a winter phone call asking to bring the job forward to August, and to pay more money, seemed like the right thing to do.

“It led to multiple excuses under the sun why they couldn’t get there even though they asked to bring the job forward,” Ms Barratt said.

Ms Barratt said the total bill quoted was $33,636 — they ultimately paid more than $24,000 of the full amount, but due to AEC taking so long to complete the job they requested a full refund.

“At the end of March, Mr Lynch told me that the business was in financial hardship and he would have to withdraw money from his home loan to be able to pay us back,” Ms Barratt said.

The family received about $3000 before AEC went into liquidation on May 7.

Adelaide Exposed Concrete Picture: www.adelaideexposedconcrete.com.au/

Now owed $21,009, Ms Barratt said having no driveway made things difficult running her at-home hairdressing business, and has become a “dangerous” safety hazard, both her and her eight-year-old daughter Amelia having tripped over the concreting mesh that has been laid, causing minor injuries.

“We thankfully haven’t had any serious injuries yet, but because our driveway isn’t flat and it’s on a slant, when you walk down it, our feet get stuck in the little squares of the mesh,” Ms Barratt said.

“On a daily, walking out there, we actually have to watch where we put our feet to get down the driveway.”

The Barratt family are one of 122 creditors who are owed money by AEC.

The Advertiser and Sunday Mail revealed AEC owed approximately $1.7m to households and businesses when it went into liquidation on May 7.

On Wednesday it was also revealed Mr Lynch had parted ways with the Mitchell Park Football Club, of which he was president from November 2024.

The Advertiser attempted to contact Mr Lynch for comment.

Originally published as Financially broken and physically hurt: Young family caught up in Adelaide Exposed Concrete failure