Fauquier County, VA Building Safety: Building Inspections (2026)

Fauquier County established the Office of Building Official under County Code Sec. 5-2 to administer and enforce the Virginia Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC) across unincorporated Fauquier County; the towns of Warrenton, The Plains and Remington run their own building departments. The building official issues permits, holds the powers and duties set out in the USBC, and must submit an annual report on the office's work to the Board of Supervisors, with a copy forwarded to the state Office of Uniform Building Code.

Section 5-3 sets what triggers a permit. Ordinary repairs are exempt from application and notice, but that exemption never covers cutting or removing a structural beam, cutting into a load-bearing wall or partition, or removing or altering a required exit. No wiring system for light, heat or power may be installed, extended or altered without a permit. Once a building permit has been obtained for construction, remodeling or an addition, the code does not require a second permit for the same work.

Permit fees are not fixed in the code text itself: the Board of Supervisors adopts, and may amend, a fee schedule by ordinance or resolution, and no permit carrying a fee may be issued or amended until that fee is paid to the county treasurer. If the county has an agreement letting another Virginia locality, municipality or a state-board-approved agency administer the USBC within Fauquier County under Sec. 5-2, fees are instead paid to that governmental entity or agency. Fauquier adopted the USBC by reference in Sec. 5-1 rather than writing its own local inspection schedule, so the technical inspection sequence itself follows USBC procedure.