A Georgia man spent four years building his dream treehouse, but the county said he couldn’t live there without paying thousands for invisible lines

Bruno, a custom treehouse builder who runs the Southern Adventures social media accounts, spent four years putting together a treehouse on his family’s property in Georgia. When he finally tried to make it his permanent home, the county stepped in with a problem he had not anticipated, as detailed by The Nerd Stash. The TikTok he posted explaining the situation pulled in 1.5 million views.

At first, living in the treehouse was permitted. Then county seats changed hands and the decision was reversed, leaving him needing a permit he had not originally required. That process dragged on for a year and a half before he finally got one, but it came with a condition attached. The county required him to expand the structure to at least 12 square feet to meet minimum size requirements, which he described as a move designed to tax him more.

Blocking people from building what they want on their own land is a problem that has come up elsewhere too, including a Wisconsin woman who owns 37 acres and was still denied permission to build on it. Expanding the treehouse would create a new problem entirely. His parents want to build a house on the same property, which covers more than 100 acres, but if the treehouse becomes the primary residence, county rules would prevent a second home from being constructed on the land.

The loophole that costs thousands

“Now they say that my parents cannot build a house on the same property, which is over 100 acres, by the way, because now the treehouse is the primary residence, so we can’t do another house,” he explained. He went back to county officials to lay out the situation again. Without the expansion, the treehouse still qualifies as an accessory structure, but that created its own dead end.

The county told him his parents could not build their house either, because local ordinance prohibits constructing an accessory structure before the main house exists. “We’re trying to build it, but you’re saying no. So we go in circles and circles, and they’re just like, sorry, it’s impossible. You cannot build another house on the property,” he said.

The only path through turned out to be a workaround involving surveyors and a significant amount of money. The plan is to divide the property on paper, allow his parents to pull a permit on their designated section, build the house, and then pay to have the lines erased and the land put back together as one. “So we had to pay surveyors thousands of dollars to draw invisible lines across the property so that my parents can build on the exact same property,” he said.

“And then when they finish, we will pay them thousands more dollars to erase the invisible lines and put the properties back together.” On top of all of that, he was being taxed for living in the treehouse despite the fact that he was not actually living there, while at the same time being told he was not allowed to. His response to the whole situation was simple: “Make it make sense.”

Viewers largely agreed. “Rules for the sake of rules,” one commenter wrote. Others pointed out that he could have avoided the issue entirely by not disclosing the structure to the county in the first place. “Your mistake was telling the county,” one wrote. Bruno said regardless, he intends to play by the rules.