Wow. Time flies. We are already halfway through the year. Welcome to Summer!
I wanted to share something that's been coming up more often these days: Sewer Lateral. What is that, you ask? The sewer lateral is the pipe that connects your home's plumbing to the city's main sewer line. Many homes in our area still have their original clay pipes, which are prone to cracking, leaking, and root intrusion. Roots from nearby trees can grow into the pipe, causing blockages, backups, or even total pipe failure. Ouch!
Sellers:
A growing number of Bay Area cities require a sewer lateral compliance certificate as a condition of the sale. This means that before escrow can close, both the buyer and the seller need to have an agreement in place on who is responsible for bringing it to compliance. Depending on the city, sometimes a deposit with the sanitary district is required prior to closing.
Buyers:
If the sewer line is old, make sure you budget for the eventual replacement. You may not need to do it immediately, but it's a good idea to know that someday, you will probably have to replace it.
We recently replaced the sewer line for our seller since it was old and was due for replacement. The cost was around $8000 but keep in mind, the cost can vary signficantly, depending on the distance from our clean out to the city main. Trenchless pipe replacement is pretty common these days. This means that they do not have to dig up your yard to put in the pipe, rather, they feed a replacement flexible pipe into the existing pipe and connect it to city main sewer line. See the short video below where they slowly feed that long pipe into the existing pipe.
Want to know which city has this point of sale sewer lateral requirement? Reach out and we're happy to walk you through it!