Who Is Responsible for Your Sewer Line in Georgia?

The three parts of a sewer connection

Start with the plumbing code's terms. Georgia's plumbing code is based on the International Plumbing Code (IPC), and the 2024 edition defines three pieces (2024 IPC, Section 202):

• Building drain: the lowest drainage piping, which collects waste inside the building and carries it to a point 30 inches (measured along the pipe) beyond the outside walls.
• Building sewer: the pipe from the end of the building drain to a public sewer, a private sewer or a septic system. Utilities call it the lateral, service line or house connection.
• Public sewer: pipes a city, county or other public entity installs and maintains on public property, in the street or in a dedicated easement. Georgia's amendments to the 2024 code make that installed or maintained.

Two more terms matter. A cleanout is an access opening used to clear obstructions, usually a pipe with a removable cap. The tap or service stub is the short pipe at the main where the lateral connects; Gwinnett County's written procedure, for example, describes a county-maintained stub, typically 6-inch, joined to a privately owned lateral, typically 4-inch (Gwinnett procedure).

Local definitions don't always match the model code. Fulton County's code (§ 82-107) ends the building drain five feet outside the inner face of the building wall, while the Douglasville-Douglas County authority uses three feet from the outside wall (DDCWSA rules).

Where responsibility usually changes hands

Among the providers checked, the dividing line falls in one of three places:

1. At the public main. You maintain the whole lateral, including the part under the street. Atlanta (according to its 311 service), Fulton County, Savannah, Macon and Athens-Clarke follow versions of this rule.
2. At the right-of-way or easement line. You maintain the lateral up to the edge of the public right-of-way or a sewer easement, and the utility maintains the section from there to the main. DeKalb County, Gwinnett County, the Clayton County Water Authority and the Cherokee County Water and Sewerage Authority work this way.
3. At the utility's service lateral. Cobb County's code makes owners responsible for the line from the house to the point where it meets the county's service lateral.

The property line and the right-of-way line aren't necessarily the same. Gwinnett's resident-responsibility page describes the right-of-way as a strip along public roads, reserved for utilities and varying in width, that usually holds the water meter and fire hydrants. In new Atlanta developments, the city code (§ 154-147) has house connections run one pipe joint, three feet, past the property side of the sidewalk, with a cleanout at the property line.

The joint between the two pipes is a common trouble spot. Gwinnett's procedure says more than 70 percent of backups reported to the county have historically been in the privately maintained part of the lateral, most often roots entering at the joint between the 4-inch and 6-inch pipes. Gwinnett assigns that joint to the owner when it sits outside the right-of-way or easement, and Athens-Clarke includes the connection at the main in the owner's share (Athens-Clarke Public Utilities).

How major Georgia sewer providers draw the line

The table summarizes each provider's own code, policy or customer page, as of October 2026. Rules change and special cases are common, so confirm with the provider.

Four other large providers' published documents describe how sewer services are built but don't state the maintenance split plainly, so ask them directly:

• Henry County Water Authority: its 2023 standards and specifications define the lateral as the pipe from the main to the street right-of-way or easement, and its customer FAQ tells customers with sewage coming out of drains to have a plumber clean the private pipes on their property.
• Augusta Utilities Department: its 2023 water and sewer standards end each sewer service in a cleanout at the edge of the right-of-way, and its cleanout detail drawing shows where the private service line ties in.
• Columbus Water Works: its sewer specifications say that where no stub-out exists, CWW, for a fee, installs the tap and lateral to the edge of the right-of-way or easement, and the owner connects from that stub-out to the house.
• Forsyth County Water and Sewer: its water and sewer construction notes put lateral cleanouts one foot behind the right-of-way or on the sewer easement line.

What Georgia's plumbing code adds

Georgia's State Minimum Standard Plumbing Code is the IPC plus Georgia amendments adopted by the Department of Community Affairs (DCA). Georgia has adopted the 2024 IPC with Georgia amendments. DCA's most recent announcement, from December 2025, gives January 1, 2027 as its effective date, while an earlier DCA memo, from September 2025, said January 1, 2026. DCA has also asked cities and counties with local amendments to review them, so ask your city or county building department which edition and amendments it enforces.

The Georgia amendments that matter here concern cleanouts. Georgia's version of IPC Section 708.1.2 adds a cleanout within 10 feet of the public right-of-way on building sewers, and its version of 708.1.3 calls for a cleanout at or near the junction of the building drain and building sewer, outside the wall unless otherwise approved and brought up to finished grade. DCA's amendment chart marks both as carried forward from Georgia's earlier amendments, so these cleanout rules are the same either way. The guide to finding your sewer cleanout covers what they look like and links DCA's documents.

The plumbing code governs how your pipes are built, not who maintains them: its definition of a drainage system (2024 IPC, Section 202) excludes the mains of a public sewer, so the maintenance boundary comes from your provider's rules. This guide is general information, not legal advice; your utility, a licensed plumber or an attorney can tell you how the rules apply to your property.

How to confirm the rule for your address

1. Identify your sewer provider. Check who bills you for sewer service. If your bill shows water but no sewer charge, ask the utility whether your home is on a septic system.
2. Read that provider's rule. Start with the table above, then the provider's website or ordinance; several codes cited here are published on Municode.
3. Find your cleanouts. Look for one near the house and one near the street. Georgia's amendments call for both, but older lines may lack them; Gwinnett's procedure, for instance, has a separate path for laterals with no right-of-way cleanout.
4. Check for easements. Gwinnett's resident-responsibility page notes that easements crossing private property are generally recorded and should turn up in a title search, and Cobb's pipe-ownership page tells owners to check the plat or deed.
5. Call the provider before hiring anyone for work near the street. Ask where your responsibility ends at your address, whether the utility will check the main and its own section first, whether there is a right-of-way cleanout, who may dig in the right-of-way, and what it requires before considering reimbursement. Gwinnett's resident-responsibility page warns owners to be cautious when plumbers claim the county will reimburse their work, and its procedure bars owners' plumbers from excavating into the right-of-way.
6. Contact 811 before anyone digs. Georgia's dig law requires a locate request through Georgia 811 before digging with mechanized equipment, and Georgia 811 asks everyone, including people digging by hand, for a free ticket at least three business days ahead. The utilities it notifies mark only public lines; Georgia 811 counts the sewer line between your home and the public sewer as a private line and suggests a private locator for it. The sewer utility must still help locate laterals up to the edge of the public right-of-way, and that help does not make it the lateral's owner or operator (O.C.G.A. § 25-9-7(b)).

For licensing, estimates and vetting, see how to hire a drain cleaning company in Georgia.

When the problem is on the utility's side

If neighbors have the same problem or sewage is coming out of a manhole, report it to the utility right away; the sewer backup guide covers what to do inside the house meanwhile. Providers' written procedures show what to expect:

• Gwinnett treats every backup report as an emergency, 24 hours a day. The investigator checks the manholes upstream and downstream; a crew jets a blocked main, and clears or digs up a blocked county stub.
• Atlanta's 311 article on reporting a possible sewer backup says a first responder will investigate within eight hours, containment can take four to eight hours, and full resolution, including repairs and restoring the property or street, can take 30 to 45 days.
• Albany invites residents to call the Sewer Division before a plumber and jets the main when the blockage is there.
• Cobb's Water System says on its sewer maintenance page that it can verify whether county lines, including any in an easement on your property, are contributing to a problem.

If your own plumber finds the blockage in the utility's section, repayment rules vary. Gwinnett lets owners apply for reimbursement of a plumber's fees when the obstruction was entirely in the county's section, but county staff must see the excavated line before it is repaired, and the county's risk management office decides whether the county is responsible (Gwinnett procedure). In Fulton County, right-of-way repairs are done by the county or an approved contractor at the owner's cost.

Low-lying fixtures change the picture. If a home's lowest finished floor sits below the rim of the upstream manhole, Gwinnett's procedure requires the owner to show that a working backflow prevention device protected the lateral before it will consider a claim for property damage, and the Clayton County Water Authority says owners without a required device bear the damage and cleanup (Gwinnett procedure; CCWA). See backwater valves explained, and for claims and coverage, sewer backup insurance in Georgia.

Private mains, shared laterals and association communities

The utilities checked here maintain pipes on public land or in easements granted to them. Atlanta's code (§ 154-141) defines a private sewer as one on private property that doesn't serve the community at large and has no recorded city maintenance easement. In Cobb, the county's easement page explains that a line a developer builds across private land becomes the county's once construction is complete and the permanent easement transfers.

Several codes restrict shared laterals. DeKalb (§ 25-212) and Fulton (§ 82-195) require a separate building sewer for every building, with a narrow exception for a rear building on the same lot; Fulton accepts no responsibility for unauthorized multiple connections, and the affected owners pay to separate them. The Douglasville-Douglas County authority's rules say lines installed before April 1, 1986 that serve separately owned properties outside a public right-of-way or easement may be considered privately owned and maintained.

For unincorporated neighborhoods on failing private sewer systems, DeKalb's code (§ 2-450) sets out a special tax district process to repair them and bring them into the public system, but not to repair individual laterals, which remain the owner's responsibility.

In a condo, townhome or other association community, your unit's pipe may join other units' lines before it reaches a public main or easement. The utility's rules only tell you where its pipes end; for shared private pipes beyond that point, check the association's governing documents, ask the association or management company, and talk to an attorney if there is a dispute.

A worked example (hypothetical)

Suppose a homeowner in unincorporated Gwinnett County, whose sewer bill comes from the county's Department of Water Resources, hears the basement toilet gurgle and then back up on a Saturday night. Following the county's handout, they stop running the washer and dishwasher and call the department's 24-hour line.

1. An investigator checks the manholes upstream and downstream. The main is flowing normally.
2. The investigator looks into the right-of-way cleanout. The county's stub below it is dry, which under Gwinnett's procedure places the blockage in the owner's part of the lateral or inside the house. The county tells the owner and does no further work.
3. The owner hires a licensed plumber, who finds roots under the yard and clears them. The bill is the owner's.
4. Had the stub been backed up, the county would have cleared or dug up its section. Had there been no right-of-way cleanout, the owner could have asked the county to install one at its expense, typically within two to five business days, with only grass restored.

Now move the same house to Macon. Under the Macon Water Authority's rules, the owner must repair the lateral even where it runs under the street, and the authority can make the repair and bill the owner if it isn't fixed after notice. Same pipe, same roots, a different answer about who pays near the street.

Next step

Before you pay a plumber for any digging near the street, call your sewer provider and ask: at my address, where does my responsibility end, and will you check your side first? Note the answer, the date and the name of the person you spoke with.