A building inspection is an inspection performed by a building inspector, a person who is employed by either a city, township or county and is usually certified in one or more disciplines qualifying them to make professional judgment about whether a building meets building code requirements. A building inspector may be certified either as a residential or commercial building inspector, as a plumbing, electrical or mechanical inspector, or other specialty-focused inspector who may inspect structures at different stages of completion. Building inspectors may charge a direct fee or a building permit fee. Inspectors may also be able to hold up construction work until inspection has been completed and approved.

Some building inspection expertises like facade inspections are required by certain cities or counties and considered mandatory. These are to be done by engineers and not by contractors. An example of a city that adopted this law is Quebec followed by a fatal incident that occurred due to negligence of the state of a facade. These inspections are often included in a contracted building inspection but might not be carefully analyzed and diagnosed like an engineer would.