Landlord suing for damages when basement flooded

By allee

Last summer I was in the process of moving from a home we had rented for 3 years when my husbands grandmother died. We had to go out of state to be with family. When we returned there were gnats everywhere. We then discovered that the basement had flooded. We called the landlord right away and informed her of the situation. We continued to move out our items, discarding all of our ruined belongings, but left all of the landlords property that she had been promising to remove from the basement for the entire 3 years down there. Over the next several days there were several phone calls from her but she never came to see the damage or to try and find out what caused the flooding. At one time she did ask my husband to talk to a friend of hers on the phone. Her friend directed my husband to check the sump pump, which upon taking the lid off we discovered had stopped working, hence causing the flooding due to wet weather. My husband moved around and fiddled with the sump pump then it came back on.We then finsihed moving out our items and returned the keys. The landlord rented out the house within a month of us leaving. Now 6 months later we have received a letter from an attorneys office saying that our previous landlord expects us to pay for the damage of the flooded basement. Are we liable?

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Holy Cow, we couldn't find any other related post. Sorry. :(