diff --git a/fs/btrfs/relocation.c b/fs/btrfs/relocation.c
index 4d9b6f9344d3..e5fbc2c00166 100644
--- a/fs/btrfs/relocation.c
+++ b/fs/btrfs/relocation.c
@@ -2454,8 +2454,28 @@ static int relocate_tree_block(struct btrfs_trans_handle *trans,
 
 	if (root) {
 		if (test_bit(BTRFS_ROOT_SHAREABLE, &root->state)) {
-			BUG_ON(node->new_bytenr);
-			BUG_ON(!list_empty(&node->list));
+			/*
+			 * This block was the root block of a root, and this is
+			 * the first time we're processing the block and thus it
+			 * should not have had the ->new_bytenr modified and
+			 * should have not been included on the changed list.
+			 *
+			 * However in the case of corruption we could have
+			 * multiple refs pointing to the same block improperly,
+			 * and thus we would trip over these checks.  ASSERT()
+			 * for the developer case, because it could indicate a
+			 * bug in the backref code, however error out for a
+			 * normal user in the case of corruption.
+			 */
+			ASSERT(node->new_bytenr == 0);
+			ASSERT(list_empty(&node->list));
+			if (node->new_bytenr || !list_empty(&node->list)) {
+				btrfs_err(root->fs_info,
+				  "bytenr %llu has improper references to it",
+					  node->bytenr);
+				ret = -EUCLEAN;
+				goto out;
+			}
 			btrfs_record_root_in_trans(trans, root);
 			root = root->reloc_root;
 			node->new_bytenr = root->node->start;