We were told that same thing - that WE were responsible for digging up the City street and fixing the pipe where it was offset at the joint to the main sewer. It was going to be $7K. We decided to go to Rome instead, haha. Honestly!! My friend had to pay for the sewer connection from her house, set way back, to the center of the road sewer pipe. City decided the foothill communities here in Los Angeles could no longer have cesspools, even tho the soil is alluvial, huge boulders and such.
So the city paid for the fixes eventually?