A seller in Old Cherry Hills gets a call from her agent on day eleven of the buyer's inspection period. The inspector's report has one line flagged in red: source of wastewater disposal, unconfirmed. She has lived in the house for six years and never once thought about it. The toilets flush. The drains clear. She tells her agent it must be city sewer, because the house sits inside the city limits and pays city taxes.
It is not city sewer. It is septic, on a system nobody has serviced in longer than anyone can document, and the buyer's team now wants a pumping record, a capacity assessment, and an answer on what it would cost to tie into the sanitary sewer if the system fails during their ownership. The ten days left on the objection deadline just got a lot more expensive to use.
This scenario is common enough in Cherry Hills Village that it deserves its own explanation, separate from the pricing conversation. The reason sellers get caught flat-footed on sewer questions is not carelessness. It is that the entity most people assume handles their sanitary sewer, the City of Cherry Hills Village, does not.
Two Governments, One Address
The City of Cherry Hills Village is a home-rule municipality with a mayor and city council. The Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District is something else entirely: a quasi-municipal corporation formed in 1974 under Title 32 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, with its own board, its own fee schedule, and its own service boundary that does not track the city line. The district's own website puts the distinction plainly:
Despite its name, the City of Cherry Hills Village Sanitation District (CHVSD) is a separate entity from the City.
CHVSD's footprint is smaller than the city itself. The district reports serving approximately 1,150 residences, along with city offices, schools, clubs, and churches, and it also reaches two subdivisions across the boundary in Greenwood Village. That last detail matters as much as the first: district service areas in this part of Arapahoe County were drawn around old sewer trunk lines, not around municipal borders. Being inside city limits tells you nothing about whether your specific parcel sits inside the sanitation district's map. Some do. Some don't. The only way to know is to check.
What Actually Starts the Sixty-Day Clock
If a property is not on the district's sewer system, it is almost certainly on private septic, and CHVSD's rules and regulations spell out exactly what happens when that septic system fails. Failure is defined narrowly: the system is overflowing, full, or not functioning properly, and the fix requires more than routine maintenance.
The district's own regulations exclude a specific list of repairs from the failure definition, including:
- Replacing tees on a septic tank
- Adding risers to grade or replacing damaged risers
- Replacing a septic tank manhole or riser lid
- Replacing pumps, floats, or associated electrical work
- Replacing damaged sewer pipe sections, cleanouts, or valve boxes
Anything beyond that list, and the clock starts. Once a system genuinely fails, the property owner has sixty days to purchase a sewer tap permit and connect to district facilities. Sixty days is not a long runway for a capital project that involves permitting, excavation, and inspection, and it is a brutal timeline to discover mid-transaction, when a buyer's inspector has just found standing effluent and the objection deadline is closing in days, not months.
The Fee Schedule Nobody Budgets For
Even outside a failure scenario, tying a property into the district's sewer system is not a flat cost. CHVSD prices its sewer tap permits by water tap size, and the published schedule scales sharply:
| Service Size | Sewer Tap Fee |
|---|---|
| 3/4 inch | $12,000 |
| 1 inch | $20,040 |
| 1.5 inch | $39,960 |
| 2 inch | $63,960 |
| 3 inch | $128,040 |
| 4 inch | $200,040 |
| 6 inch | $399,960 |
A separate $125 fee applies to a sewer cut-off permit and inspection, and a $500 fee applies to reconnection. Most single-family homes will fall on the smaller end of that schedule, but the size of the water tap serving a property, and therefore the size of the connection fee, is tied to lot size and irrigation demand as much as to household plumbing. On larger estate parcels, the number that ends up on the permit application is not always the one a buyer assumed going in.
This is a cost that never shows up in a listing photo, a comp sheet, or a citywide median. It surfaces exactly once, during due diligence, and by then it is a negotiation, not a line item.
The Overlay Problem: Buell Mansion, Covington, and Englewood
Cherry Hills Village complicates this further with overlapping service areas inside its own borders. Properties in Buell Mansion and Covington, along with parcels served by the Hillcrest Water and Sanitation District, can owe tap fees to the City of Englewood in addition to CHVSD's own charges. Most new sewer tap connections require inspection by both CHVSD and the City of Englewood, but Buell Mansion and Covington properties are carved out of that Englewood inspection requirement specifically, per the district's own summary of permitting regulations.
None of this is intuitive from the street. Two homes a block apart can answer the same due diligence question with completely different fee structures, inspection requirements, and processing timelines, depending on which subdivision or sub-district boundary they happen to sit inside.
Wells and the New Disclosure Form
Sewer and septic are only half the utility picture. Estate parcels in Cherry Hills Village frequently carry a private irrigation well even when the home's domestic water comes from a municipal source. Colorado's Source of Water Addendum requires sellers to identify the property's potable water source and attach the current well permit where one applies, and that obligation exists independent of whether the property is on district sewer or septic.
The paperwork carrying all of this changed at the start of this year. The Colorado Real Estate Commission's Seller's Property Disclosure form for residential property, adopted August 5, 2025, became mandatory for use on or after January 1, 2026. The form itself must be completed by the seller directly, based on current actual knowledge as of the date it is signed, with an ongoing obligation to update it in writing if a new material fact surfaces before closing. A septic system that fails during an under-contract period, or a well permit that turns out to be missing, falls squarely into that update requirement.
What This Means Before You List or Write an Offer
The practical takeaway is not that Cherry Hills Village has a sewer problem. It is that the utility question is property-specific in a market where buyers and sellers are used to thinking in citywide terms, the same distortion that shows up when you pull apart what the Cherry Hills Village median actually measures. A parcel's sewer or septic status, its sub-district overlay, and its well infrastructure do not appear in a portal search, and they will not appear in a pricing conversation until an inspector asks the question directly.
If you are preparing to sell, the fix is straightforward: confirm your property's status with CHVSD before you list, not after an inspection objection lands. If you are under contract to buy, ask the question in writing during due diligence rather than assuming the answer based on the city's reputation. Sixty days feels like plenty of time until it isn't, and a five- or six-figure tap fee is a very different negotiation when it's a known quantity before you sign than when it's a surprise five days before closing.
A Short FAQ
How do I find out if my property is inside the CHVSD service boundary? Contact the district directly or check the boundary map referenced on the City of Cherry Hills Village's own site. Being inside city limits does not confirm district service, since CHVSD's boundary includes parcels in neighboring Greenwood Village and excludes some parcels within the city.
If my septic system is old but working fine, do I need to convert before I list? Not automatically. Conversion is a capital project with its own permit fees, and the district's failure rule only forces the issue once a system genuinely stops functioning. Many sellers instead document the system's service history and let a buyer's team price the eventual conversion into their offer.
Does the new Colorado disclosure form change what I have to say about septic or wells? The form itself is standardized statewide, and you still complete it from your actual knowledge. What changed on January 1, 2026 is the version in use and the explicit expectation that you update it in writing if something changes, such as a septic failure, before closing.
Utility infrastructure is not a glamorous part of buying or selling in Cherry Hills Village, but it is exactly the kind of detail that decides whether a transaction closes on schedule or stalls for weeks over a five-figure surprise. If you are weighing a purchase or a sale here and want the sewer, septic, and well status of a specific parcel checked before it becomes a negotiation, LexTalk Luxury can walk the details with you street by street. Let's Connect.
