Topics
Who owns what
The lateral, the main and who pays for which part. 6 items, each with key facts and sources.
- Who owns the sewer line between your house and the street
Westchester County puts the lateral on the property owner and the main on the municipality. Four places say so in writing; for the rest, ask the town.
- Mount Vernon: the owner's line runs all the way to the city sewer
Mount Vernon's sewer plan leaves the whole service line to the homeowner, offers no replacement program, and sits inside a federal consent decree over its storm sewers.
- Yonkers: owner lines and a city system with combined sewers
Yonkers tells many owners the buried sewer and water lines on their lots are theirs. Parts of the city also drain to combined sewers that overflow at 13 outfalls.
- How Rye and Mamaroneck codes define the lateral
Two Sound Shore codes use nearly the same words: the lateral runs from the building to the public main, and its upkeep falls on the owner alone.
- New Rochelle, White Plains, Scarsdale and others: how to check your town's rule
Ten southern Westchester municipalities have no lateral wording this site could verify. That is a gap in what is published online, not proof of no rule.
- Blockage in the main or in your line? How towns tell the difference
Towns settle main-versus-lateral by looking in the manholes. If the public pipe runs freely, the clog is private and so is the repair.