Q: Water heater broke and leaked water all over basement and we're being asking to replace it

A: The answer depends on the terms of the lease, who had the insurance interest, and whether anyone was negligent, and the result is fact dependent. While it needs to be reviewed before an opinion can be reached. One thing is certain. Doing nothing until the mold overtakes the house will turn a $700 problem into a much bigger problem. Both the renter and the landlord should report the incident to their homeowner’s or renter’s insurance companies.

A: A water heater failure is a landlord responsibility, not a tenant responsibility, so long as the tenant did not physically damage the water heater that resulted in the leak. It appears, however, that the landlord is blaming you for the carpet damage, specifically, blaming you for a delay in cleaning up the water that they contend would have allowed the carpet to be saved and cleaned and not replaced. This seems like a stretch, but that's a factual dispute that a judge will have to hear and decide. A one week delay, however, is unlikely to be the difference between a salvageable carpet and a carpet that has to be replaced. i imagine the landlord would need an expert witness to testify that the carpet could have been dried out and reused if the situation was addressed earlier. What the cost of that clean-up would have been versus the cost of replacing the carpet is the measure of damages, assuming the clean-up would have been cheaper. Again, the landlord would have to prove that cost that would have had to be incurred had access been granted as claimed.