Washington County, UT HOA Rules: CC&R Enforcement (2026)

Section 10-5-1, the purpose section for the county's zoning chapter, states the county "reserves all rights to its claimed public access and R.S. 2477 rights-of-way" and then adds that "the county does not enforce private restrictive covenants, nor shall any such covenant modify the regulations herein." That disclaimer is reinforced by Section 10-1-4, titled CONFLICT, which provides that Title 10 "shall not nullify the more restrictive provisions of covenants, agreements, other ordinances or laws, but shall prevail notwithstanding such provisions which are less restrictive." In practice this cuts both ways: if a subdivision's CC&Rs impose a tighter rule than the county allows, for example a lower fence height or a ban on visible RV storage, that private covenant keeps working exactly as written, but Washington County will not send a code officer to cite the violation.

It is the homeowners association's board, architectural committee, or a lot owner's own civil suit in state district court that has to enforce it. Conversely, if a CC&R purports to allow a use the zoning ordinance forbids, Section 10-1-4 makes clear that Title 10 controls and the county's building inspector will apply the zoning ordinance regardless of what the covenant says. The county's own enforcement machinery in Sections 10-1-11 and 10-1-12, nuisance abatement and enforcement by the building inspector and public works director, reaches only violations of Title 10 itself, never a purely private covenant breach.