Washington County, UT Building Safety: Building Inspections (2026)

Section 10-1-9, Inspection, authorizes the building inspector to inspect, or have inspected, all buildings and structures in the course of construction, modification, moving or repair, and to inspect land uses generally to check compliance with Title 10, the building code, and the subdivision ordinance. The inspector or another authorized county employee may enter any building premises to determine its use or to check compliance with county ordinances, but that right of entry is limited to reasonable hours, and an occupied building cannot be entered without the owner or tenant present unless the owner has given written permission or a court has issued a written order.

Section 10-1-10, Permits To Comply, backs this up on the front end: the building inspector cannot grant a permit for construction, alteration or moving of a building if it would violate Title 10, and no county official can grant a permit or license for a use that would violate the title. When an inspection uncovers work being done in violation of Title 10, the building code, a state construction statute, the subdivision ordinance, or the nuisance ordinance, section 10-1-18 lets the inspector issue a stop work order, known locally as a red tag; removing that red tag before the underlying violation is resolved and approved by the building inspector is itself a violation of that section.