Seattle, WA Rental Inspections: Inspection Programs (2026)

050 sets the inspection engine for the Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO). Subsection A requires the Seattle Department of Construction and Inspections to periodically select registered rental properties for inspection by a qualified rental housing inspector using a random methodology adopted by rule, covering at least 10 percent of all registered rental properties every year; newly constructed or substantially altered properties that register after January 1, 2014 are excluded from that random pool for their first five years. Once a property is selected, the Department must give the owner or agent at least 60 days' advance written notice.

Subsection B backs the random program with a floor: every registered property must be inspected at least once every ten years, and at least 10 percent of properties whose last inspection is more than five years old must be reinspected each year. Owners choose how the inspection happens under subsection G, either inspect 100 percent of the units and submit a certificate of compliance, or have a random 20 percent sample (up to 50 units per building) inspected by a private qualified rental housing inspector or a Department inspector.

A failed sample inspection escalates: two or more units failing for the same defect, or any single unit with five or more different checklist failures, triggers inspection of an additional 20 percent of units, and repeated failures can trigger inspection of 100 percent of the building. Subsection C lets the Department order an interior inspection of a specific unit named in a tenant complaint outside the random cycle, and if that unit fails, the Director can require the rest of the units under the same registration to be inspected too.