In both cases, the tenant should be educated on their responsibilities and held accountable.Even if the water source were a leaking pipe or roof, you should be able to identify the problem, dry it out, and remove the mold professionally within a few days and then the problem goes away.Simply accepting the tenant's claim - without verification - and allowing them to break the lease without penalty is a bad policy that will cost you much more in the long run.

There are certain neighborhoods that have notoriously bad foundation issues due to the soil composition.

Every house has it somewhere and generally when it happens it is the tenants fault.. or in the case of Ohio basements are basically never ever dry. 

Economic downturns can be very destructive and jobs can dry up.

There are a few different options/ methods (avoid the dry well in this case).

@Gregory Jerome It’s no longer legal to do a “dry” closing.....no funds from the B buyer, using the C buyer’s money to first the AB transaction, then the BC transaction. 

As you probably know, water in the basement will start to produce mold in about 24 hours, so your first order of business is to get the basement dry ASAP. 

It looks really solid and the roof sheathing and everything else looks very clean and dry.

Water that sits next to the house will travel down through the soil and will enter the basement. 1.

We use a Home Depot wet-dry vacuum to remove the crap and we put the crap in a few plastic trash cans.