YouTube creator Philip DeFranco is at the center of a growing dispute after his wife, Lindsay, said a neighbor cut down more than 100 trees on their property without permission.
Lindsay detailed the situation in a TikTok video that has reached three million views, calling the incident TreeGate. The family moved from Los Angeles back to Atlanta in the Summer of 2024 and says the trees provided the privacy they relied on at their new home.
In her video, she explained that a neighbor two doors down shares a backyard area with them. In September 2024, he told the DeFrancos he wanted to extend his yard by filling a retention pond and might cut trees on both properties.
DeFranco alleges more than 100 trees were removed without approval
The YouTuber’s wife says they told him they wanted to maintain their privacy and only agreed to a plan where a few marked trees would be removed after prior notice.
According to Lindsay, the neighbor went silent for a year before sending a message asking if he had their approval to begin work on the pond project. She said yes, but did not sign any documents.
Then they woke up to find the entire treeline gone. Their backyard had been lined with tall, mature trees that created a natural privacy wall for the YouTube family, and more than 100 of them were allegedly removed.
After realizing the trees were gone, she emailed the neighbor demanding answers. She claims he responded by saying the city required the trees to be removed, but Lindsay says they were not his trees to cut and that he had agreed to give notice.
“I sent him an email saying ‘What the hell, you had no right to do this,’” she said. “He wrote back to me and was like, ‘Yeah, we didn’t want to have to lose all the trees either, but the city said we had to cut down all the trees to do this.’ I’m just thinking, ‘Those aren’t your trees to cut down. You should have told us. You promised that you would tell us. You would ask us. You wouldn’t cut down every tree.’”
In her latest update, she says the HOA confirmed the city permit the neighbor obtained did not include any portion of the DeFranco property. Lindsay is also in the process of hiring an attorney.
“The forest was so dense, I didn’t realize what they were doing on the other side until it was too late,” Defranco added.
Defranco contacted a land surveyor to mark the boundary line and later shared a message from him saying he had “never seen this bad an encroachment.” Philip Defranco’s wife told the neighbor not to enter their property again until the lines were confirmed and an agreement was in place.
