Who pays for the sewer lateral in Santa Clarita, CA

Who is responsible for which part

Santa Clarita's sewer law is Los Angeles County's: the City "adopted ... by reference, as a sanitary sewer and industrial waste ordinance of the City of Santa Clarita ... Los Angeles County Code, Title 20, Utilities, Division 2". That code puts the length under the street on you. "All house laterals ... and appurtenances thereto ... shall be maintained by the owner of the property served in a safe and sanitary condition" - and a house lateral, as County Code section 20.20.130 defines it, is the piping in the street running from your property line to the main.

The property owner

The whole run to the main, including the part under the road. Los Angeles County Code section 20.24.080, adopted as Santa Clarita's own ordinance, provides that "all house laterals, industrial connection sewers, septic tank outlet connections to STEP system, and appurtenances thereto existing as of January 23, 1953, or thereafter constructed, shall be maintained by the owner of the property served in a safe and sanitary condition, and all devices or safeguards which are required by this Division 2 for the operation thereof shall be maintained in good working order". County Code section 20.20.130 defines a house lateral as the sewer piping within the street or right-of-way, from the property or sewer right-of-way line to its connection with the main-line sewer - so that sentence is about the street length, not the garden. The pipe across your own land is governed by the plumbing code and is yours in the ordinary way.

What else is worth knowing

Nothing splits the pipe, and the thing to understand is where the words come from. Santa Clarita's own chapter 15.20 adopts Los Angeles County Code Title 20 Division 2 wholesale and its local definitions were repealed in 2009, so the book that answers a question about your lateral is the County's - three copies of it are deposited with the City Clerk. Two consequences follow for a reader. First, the length under the street is explicitly yours: the County code names house laterals, defines them as the piping in the right-of-way, and assigns them to the owner of the property served. A great many people assume the opposite, and in several other cities the opposite is true. Second, when you ring the City about a blockage, the section numbers that matter are County section numbers, and quoting them will get you further than quoting a chapter of the municipal code that was repealed. Third, and worth checking on your own frontage: the City's sewer system management plan describes the split differently from the code. Its glossary defines a private sewer lateral as reaching "the connection to the public sewer unless there is a clean-out in the sidewalk or within two and a half feet of the property line. In this case, the property owner is responsible for the lateral from the building drain to the clean-out only." The same glossary says the City's system includes "certain lower laterals". That is a materially smaller share of the pipe than the County code gives you, and it turns on whether you have a cleanout in a particular place. Treat it with some care - the same glossary defines the Regional Water Quality Control Board as "the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board", which is the wrong region for Santa Clarita and marks the section as adapted from a template. Ask the City which governs your address before you spend anything on the strength of either.

Checked 2026-09-15

What is required

• Any timePermit

  The permit rule that applies in Santa Clarita is Los Angeles County's, adopted as a City ordinance, and it reaches your own pipe. "No person ... shall commence, do or cause to be done, construct or cause to be constructed, use or cause to be used, alter or cause to be altered any public sewer, main-line sewer, house lateral, sewage pumping plant, water pollution control plant, or other similar appurtenance ... without first obtaining a sewer construction permit from the County Engineer." It then expires "if the work authorized by such permit is not commenced within sixty (60) days from the date of issuance", with discretion to extend it "up to two (2) times", on a written request made before expiry.

  What to do: Ring the City first and ask who issues a sewer construction permit under Municipal Code section 15.20.010 and County Code section 20.32.010 - those two numbers will save a conversation. Do not pull the permit until your contractor has a start date, because it dies sixty days after issue if work has not begun, and put the extension request in writing before the expiry date rather than on it. If your lot is large enough to be divided, or you are building more than one dwelling on it, raise section 20.32.370 early: the code may require a separate house lateral run to the main for each parcel the lot could legally be split into.

  Why this matters▸▾

  Two things trip people up here, and both come from the same source - the law is in a book with somebody else's name on it. The list of things you may not alter without a permit includes "house lateral", which is the length the same code makes you responsible for, so this is not a rule about public infrastructure that happens to be nearby. And the permit is written as coming from the County Engineer, in a code the City adopted word for word, so looking for a city sewer permit by that name may not find it. The sixty-day clock is the other trap: it runs from issue, not from when your contractor is free, and the two extensions have to be asked for before the permit expires rather than after.

  In force since 1990-07-24 · Checked 2026-09-15

  Los Angeles County Code, Title 20 Utilities, Division 2 Sanitary Sewers and Industrial Waste, Chapter 20.32 Sanitary Sewers

  Also quoted:

  • Santa Clarita Municipal Code section 15.20.010

Who governs and serves this area

Jurisdiction

Santa Clarita (municipality)

Sewer service

Not mapped. No sewer service territory covering this area has been added, so BelowGrid cannot say who serves an individual address here.