Outside the cities, most Livingston homes are on a well and septic — inspect before you buy

Brighton, Howell, and the village centers have municipal water and sewer. Across most of Livingston County’s townships, though, homes run on a private well for drinking water and a septic system for waste. If you’re moving from a city, that’s a real change. The well and the septic are yours to maintain, and a failed septic drain field can cost many thousands of dollars to replace.

Here’s the part worth knowing. Michigan has no single statewide code for residential septic systems — the rules are set locally, county by county. Livingston County does not require a well or septic inspection when a home is sold, even though some nearby counties, like Washtenaw, do. Nobody automatically checks these systems for you at closing. So make your own well-water test and septic inspection part of your offer, rather than assuming the system is sound. The county health department handles well and septic permits and keeps records you can look up for a given property.