Mold due to water heater leakage - Whose responsibility?

[Raman Bindlish]

I need some urgent guidance on a situation with my rental. My tenant reported water heater leakage on 14th Feb. I got a technician to look at it same day and got the heater replaced (with permit taken) by 15th morning (in less than 24 hours). It seems the leakage was going on for a long time and tenant did not report to me. Now there is a lot of mold in garage due to this. Tenant is asking me to take care of it. 

1. I took care of leakage immediately. Is it not tenant's responsibility to not let the mold develop? Isn't it lease violation?

2. i am not able to find what is exact law here. Some places it says that mold due to leakage is landlord responsibility. But if I am not aware of leakage for days/weeks , shouldn't it be tenant responsibility that they ignored it and did not inform me.

3. It is a duplex and mold is possibly going to impact the other unit as we can see some on shared wall. Can I ask the tenant to take care of other side also? 

Please guide if I can press my tenant to take care of this mess. 

Thanks

Raman

[Thomas S.]

Your property therefor you are ultimately responsible. How do you prove tenants was aware of leak.

For mold to develop the leak would have existed for a long time, mold does not happen over night, in which case you should have found it yourself during your regular inspections and fixed it before it became a problem.

If you do not do regular inspections then it is definatly your responsibility to cover the cost of repairs. Landlords do not rely on tennats to report problems.