Parent Hiding Real Estate Income to avoid paying Child Support

[Becca Young]

Hi everyone,

I have a quick question, wondering if anyone could help someone out for International Women's Day! I have a friend who is a single mom and is singlehandedly raising her child, without any physical support or custody from the child's father. The child's father is trying to reduce his child support down to a ridiculously low amount. The father is married and has another child, and a few years ago he mentioned that he and his wife's mortgage is covered by an AirBnB rental guesthouse in their backyard. 

In the most recent court documents, he's claiming he doesn't have an AirBnB or short term rental income. He also claims there is no guest house in the backyard (even though it's clearly pictured in RedFin photos and on Google satellite view). 

What kind of discovery request can prove that he either has an AirBnB, or that he temporarily took it off the market to avoid having to pay child support? Is this something the court can require AirBnB or VRBO to disclose, past rental records? If you have any other tips on how to find someone's hidden STVR income, please let me know!

Thank you! 

[Ben Zimmerman]

You would need the help of a decent lawyer to compel companies like AirBNB or VRBO to disclose statements.  But any decent lawyer will know the proper ways to request this data in discovery.  Alternatively you can simply wait a month or two as the person will likely start relisting the property on those websites once they feel like its safe to do so.  They aren't going to let a perfectly good vrbo income stream sit idle for long.

Alternatively, you could try to find the house on various websites such as AirDNA, which should give you a rough approximation of what the property has historically earned.  You don't necessarily need to prove exactly how much the person earned, you only need to prove that the person is lying through their teeth about their income.  Once the judge realizes that the person is purposefully hiding income, its game over for that person and the judge will make sure they start paying up.