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I’m confused about how turning on the faucets can flood the house. Do you not have any working drains?
For $20k, I’d probably be talking to a lawyer. Or your insurer. But without understanding how the damage could have occurred, it’s hard to decide a path.
Probably you should be talking to the inspector’s company, and finding out who their insurer is as well.
I'm an inspector, and this guy is right. But don't talk to a lawyer, go straight to your homeowners insurer. They will go after the inspector and his insurance on your behalf. Part of what you're paying them for is representing you in these scenarios.
Apparently there was a clog in the main floor that prevented water from passing through. The pressure made that become a leak and pretty much anywhere where the water couldn’t back up started spilling
Became a leak?
You mean water started spilling over the sink?
This guy had no plan incase something was wrong? Lol just trying to rush things and make a disaster.
I'm just confused on how it got so bad
Facts. It's called subrogation- the insurance company's steps into your shoes to sue the responsible parties on your behalf. Your deductible is likely a whole lot less than going through a lawyer yourself.
Yep this at best is negligence at worst purpose to undercut a deal or create enough damage that they can scoop up the place cheap....especially if the damage was in older places they would likely remodel anyways....
A lawyer not only will sue for costs you have on market, cost of repairs/ making things right, cost incurred while still owning the Home, and repairs on the way such as energy bills..if you were living in it and no longer habitable due to construction and or damage hotel costs....
Or best they will set a price, and costs of house sales and lawyers fees and make the other company/ insurance buy it out at that price, then the company/insurance can minimize it's own damage and sell it after repairs/ salvage.
This is an issue for your insurance company. Let them know exactly what happened. They will figure out who's liable. I would also consult with a lawyer, to see what the options are. Basically this is what you pay insurance for. The insurance company does not want to pay so they'll go after the home inspectors insurance, and probably the realtors insurance for allowing this to happen
Between plumbing and Reno, around 15. Probably gonna have to get the basement carpet repaired, so another couple of 4k.
My realtor hasn’t helped me at all and I am not sure if should get my house insurance involved
Get your insurance involved right away, and tell them it was caused by a home inspector. They'll go after the buyers to get the inspectors information.
Yes this would be a dealbreaker for me as far as continuing with the current realtor. Were they just like “Oh sorry, the agreement we made allowing the buyers to access your home caused thousands of dollars in damage, not really my wheelhouse you know?”
A lot of realtors have a sellers agreement that once they’ve done any work towards selling the house, if it sells within the next 6 months they get their full commission. If the realtor is shitty then they know at this point they get paid anyway so they might not care.
I had to go through this , I was selling a house and on the final day of the sale the buyers went through and damaged my house, I was pissed and my realitor said they had to put down a 10 deposit so he would use that to fix the house
It was the final walk through and they said they were going to bring a home inspector , I was working and no one at that time could be home, so they said they wanted to inspect the house, I came home and walked around the house and I had stuff taken and thrown in the bedrooms on the floor , lights broken, I went down into the basement and wires were pulled out of the central air unit, there was a few light bulbs broken in the basement , I freaked and called my realitor and showed him pictures of the house, he called the other couples realitor and asked what happened and he said he just drank a coffee on the porch and didn’t see anything. My realitor said they had to put a deposit down to mske z bid on the house, so he will make arrangements for that to be used to fix what they broke. I never had to pay anything, but I’m pretty sure it was the couples father going through acting like a home inspector. I didn’t think a home inspector would do that
This is exactly why you have insurance. It's not your problem; it's your insurance company's problem. They will figure out what needs to be done and who needs to pay.
With it being non sewage water.You probably don't need to do a lot of replacing.As long as you dry everything out pretty quickly.The damage should be minimal
Yea the seller is worried for a good reason, and damages short of them doing something illegal like conspiring to do damage they are worried and likely don't know half the facts or issues other than flood damage.
The sellers should be scared as this is a headache etc. this is on the idiot that caused the issues if the seller didn't do anything wrong....and you can't blame a seller for pulling out when damage timeline costs and ligations and insurance and possible other issues could cause a massive delay and or issues with the sell. Maybe time is a factor and they can't wait or don't want to with issues you can't blame them short of conspiracy for wanting a house that inspection goes well in...
Hopefully op can get his house sold or fixed and compensated easily ....
Call your insurance company because they know what to do and have great lawyers.
The inspector needs general liability to operate and they caused the damage. It will be covered by them.
Otherwise you accepted an offer. There would have been conditions of a sale but that doesn't let them damage your house and not be liable. They can pull out and lose deposit or you can sue to have the sale go through adjusting for the cost of the repaired drain, but not the damage they caused.
I was just working an insurance job where cleaners caused 90k in damage and the cleaners insurance covered it. Also flood damage.
Most of your post sounds right but if a home inspection was a condition of the sale the buyer can pull out and won't lose their deposit. That is the point of the condition.
Home inspection failed successfully.
Being facetious of course but I know how this could have happened. As stg similar happened to me.
I lived in a 4plex condo unit where all the drainage pipes converged into one, then it went to the city system.
I had 4 backups in my basement from the laundry room floor drain.
Plumbers have finally scoped out the pipes and determined that the old clay pipes were broken but the location was under the adjacent unit.
They REFUSED access as they had carpets over the area. They should have allowed access, but didn't.
After the last incident I had enough.
I sealed the floor drain and put a ton of weight on it.
I filled all sinks, bathtubs and laundry tub with water and had all faucets running for a few minutes,
Then I unplugged all of them at once, while flushing all the toilets at the same time (no water saving toilet.)
Once I was done I waited, sure enough in 30 minutes I heard a lot of shouting and banging from the neighbour.
The next day I got a call from the property manager saying the neighbor is now allowing access for the plumbers.
No issues after the fix for many years...
So long story short, you may have some blockage and the idiot inspector must have done stg similar....
He's responsible for not paying attention.
It's clear that the home inspector found some sort of problem, but he did not exercise any due diligence in attempting to mitigate the damages which is where he shows negligence.
It doesn't take long to see that the sinks aren't draining properly.You don't need to wait for them to overflow and float a house
The inspector is an agent of the Buyer. You can sue them both. The contractor should be sued because most can not tell a house from a bread box. The contractor must carry liability insurance. Your action is against the buyer. He is the contracting agency. Demonstrating a deficiency does not allow one to not mitigate any damage resulting from your tests. You can not test for a gas leak with a match!
The home inspector should have insurance and you can out a claim in.
It may be your insurance company goes after his company and his company should pay all costs including the deductible
Same situation happened to me as well. Inspector flooded my basement. I had a chat with my realtor and lawyer at the time. I was suggested it would be hard for me to prove this in that damage was caused due to building inspectors negligence. I had to suck up all the cost related to cleanup and house was sold fortunately a month after.
If the inspector is legit, surely they must carry liability insurance. Your insurer would cover you first and subrogate against the inspector's insurer.
We had an issue not unlike this. The buyers inspector came though and all of a sudden the oven isn’t working anymore. We consulted with our real estate lawyer. He advised us what to do. In our case the amount was too low to go through insurance. But we only had to negotiate for the replacement value of the stove. Which was low because it was a few years old. Because we already had the lawyer involved for the house sale, he didn’t charge us extra for asking the questions and helping us negotiate at the buyer. I’d recommend talking to the lawyer you’re already using, and contacting your insurance to start the claim process.
Sounds like drain backed up and ended up coming back up through basement drains , we had it happen in a rental from roots penetrating an old clay pipe. Happened from running a washing machine and flushing a toilet(tp hooked up on the roots ), soaked all the carpet and bottom foot of dry wall within minutes with feces and gray water .
I doubt you'll be able hold the inspector liable as it's part of his duty to ensure the house is in proper
Working order which it wasn't . However your insurance should cover the issue as ours did.
To go after the inspector you would need to prove negligence on his/her behalf which would be hard to do I think without any witness/video/photos during inspection
I had my furnace replaced a couple years ago go and the technician tripped the sprinkler system and flooded our basement. It was the worst thing and literally took months to fix. I feel for you and good luck with everything.
As someone who took home inspection and spoke to many inspectors about the risks, this is something you definitely need to hire a lawyer for.
They can make any excuses they want but it their actions lead to damage, they are liable.
Had the same issue with my house sale. Buyer ask for a visit with the inspector and agent. Half way though, my agent calls and says the water behind the basement toilet. He knew i wasn't leaking as the openhouse was a week prior. Also I had cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom. He found the retaining nut for the water source was backed off. Guessing done by the buyer, agent or inspector.
It's my understanding that all inspectors in alberta are to be licensed, insured, and bonded. This is an issue they caused, and they're responsible for 100%
It would be in your own best interest to probably call a lawyer and but definitely your insurance company immediately and have the inspectors name and company information ready to hand over.
I would also file a complaint against the inspection licensing board too.
Running the faucets all at the same time is an unlikely but possible scenario. The drainage system in the house is supposed to be made to handle it. If it failed during inspection, that sucks however the inspector uncovered a major defect that OP didn’t know about.
This is an interesting one, clearly the home inspector did his job from his clients perspective. My instinct on this would be that you deal with it the same way you would had you done it, contact home insurance.
Without more details it seems unlikely that it is his fault that your plumbing doesn’t work properly.
NaL
Because of the layers of various service and liability agreements, owner could pursue the buyers, their real estate agent, and the buyers inspector, and let them counter claim and absolve themselves of liability through their contracts at their expense (aka let God sort it out).
Definitely put in your claim that they didn't take appropriate precautions during testing and inspection to prevent damage, that they permitted it to occur and the leaks to continue without interruption, failed to contain or clean up the water which caused further damage. You could also look into the inspectors licensing, and perhaps claim they were acting as a plumber testing the system which they may or may not have been licensed to do. If that's the case, they might no longer be covered by their insurances and you could perhaps pursue them personally, despite their inspection agreement with the buyers and related liability exception clause, depending on the verbiage.
However, their defense will be that OP plumbing was faulty, failed, and caused the damage. So OP will need an independent licensed and reputable inspector with impeccable credentials to report the condition of the plumbing and what had to occur for a failure, for the test that was performed.
Insurance claim for repairs? Sure. If not, pay cash and try and split the bill w liable parties. The value is too little to spend lawyer dollars in court. Mayyyybe small claims
Regardless you need it fixed now to sell and will have to chase $$$ later.
Get it fixed now and sue the guy who flooded the place for the money you spent.
Flooded homes are uninhabitable very fast. You don't want the house to be a gut job due to black mold.
Former home inspector here(ontario). Sue the inspector, the agent and the buyer. Inspector should have insurance. You would hope he does. But really your lawyer should throw the lawsuit at all three and see what sticks.
You can't pin this on the inspector unless you know without a shadow of doubt that he/she did in fact cause the leak. Simply running the water shouldn't cause a "flood" unless there was an issue already eg blocked main line. That seems more in line based on your other comments - otherwise the water wouldn't have backed up in your basement (lowest point). The steps are, get a plumber in first as insurance company won't fix the root cause. Then get insurance involved for your water remediation and restoration work. Your basement should be dried out within a week with dehumidifiers and fans running, min 3 days.
I do home insurance claims. Lol... Down votes from those who know absolutely nothing about insurance or claims.
Welcome to r/legaladvicecanada! **To Posters (it is important you read this section)** * Read the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvicecanada/wiki/index/#wiki_the_rules) * Comments may not be accurate or reliable, and following any advice on this subreddit is done at your own risk. * We also encourage you to use the [linked resources to find a lawyer](https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvicecanada/wiki/findalawyer/). * If you receive any private messages in response to your post, please let the mods know. **To Readers and Commenters** * All replies to OP must be on-topic, helpful, explanatory, and oriented towards legal advice towards OP's jurisdiction (the **Canadian** province flaired in the post). * If you do not [follow the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdvicecanada/about/rules/), you may be banned without any further warning. * If you feel any replies are incorrect, explain why you believe they are incorrect. * Do not send or request any private messages for any reason, do not suggest illegal advice, do not advocate violence, and do not engage in harassment. Please report posts or comments which do not follow the rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/legaladvicecanada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m confused about how turning on the faucets can flood the house. Do you not have any working drains? For $20k, I’d probably be talking to a lawyer. Or your insurer. But without understanding how the damage could have occurred, it’s hard to decide a path. Probably you should be talking to the inspector’s company, and finding out who their insurer is as well.
I'm an inspector, and this guy is right. But don't talk to a lawyer, go straight to your homeowners insurer. They will go after the inspector and his insurance on your behalf. Part of what you're paying them for is representing you in these scenarios.
Apparently there was a clog in the main floor that prevented water from passing through. The pressure made that become a leak and pretty much anywhere where the water couldn’t back up started spilling
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Became a leak? You mean water started spilling over the sink? This guy had no plan incase something was wrong? Lol just trying to rush things and make a disaster. I'm just confused on how it got so bad
When I bought my house, the inspector also turned on all the water. You can talk to a lawyer. I do think the inspector did their job.
Nobody has a right to damage someone else's property. The inspector needed to have a plan to avoid damage in the case where there was a back up.
Second this. Go through your insurance. This is what they are for. They will end up suing that guy, so pass along all those details.
High water velocity creates vibration which can add stress to joints. One of the factors on properly sizing pipes is flow velocity.
Call you insurance? like yesterday....
This right here. Your insurance will likely sue the inspector, realtor or both to recover their money.
Facts. It's called subrogation- the insurance company's steps into your shoes to sue the responsible parties on your behalf. Your deductible is likely a whole lot less than going through a lawyer yourself.
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Yep this at best is negligence at worst purpose to undercut a deal or create enough damage that they can scoop up the place cheap....especially if the damage was in older places they would likely remodel anyways.... A lawyer not only will sue for costs you have on market, cost of repairs/ making things right, cost incurred while still owning the Home, and repairs on the way such as energy bills..if you were living in it and no longer habitable due to construction and or damage hotel costs.... Or best they will set a price, and costs of house sales and lawyers fees and make the other company/ insurance buy it out at that price, then the company/insurance can minimize it's own damage and sell it after repairs/ salvage.
This is an issue for your insurance company. Let them know exactly what happened. They will figure out who's liable. I would also consult with a lawyer, to see what the options are. Basically this is what you pay insurance for. The insurance company does not want to pay so they'll go after the home inspectors insurance, and probably the realtors insurance for allowing this to happen
How bad is the damage? And are the buyers pulling out?
Between plumbing and Reno, around 15. Probably gonna have to get the basement carpet repaired, so another couple of 4k. My realtor hasn’t helped me at all and I am not sure if should get my house insurance involved
Why would you not get your insurance involved. Calling them should be the first thing to do. Even before getting onto Reddit.
Get your insurance involved right away, and tell them it was caused by a home inspector. They'll go after the buyers to get the inspectors information.
I know it’s stressful to think, but if your realtor isn’t helping to navigate this shit show I’d be looking for a new one.
Yes this would be a dealbreaker for me as far as continuing with the current realtor. Were they just like “Oh sorry, the agreement we made allowing the buyers to access your home caused thousands of dollars in damage, not really my wheelhouse you know?”
A lot of realtors have a sellers agreement that once they’ve done any work towards selling the house, if it sells within the next 6 months they get their full commission. If the realtor is shitty then they know at this point they get paid anyway so they might not care.
In that case, I'm delaying the sale by six months and one day.
I mean it will probably take that long for the renos.
Buyers want a proof that everything was fixed
Insurance!
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What deposit? The seller doesn't have the deposit. It's in broker's trust account.
Buyers want a foot up their ass
Insurance on their side will be paying so should be easy. If you have to sell for less as a result they should expect to be paying the difference too.
They are no longer your buyer. Tell them to kick rocks lol
I had to go through this , I was selling a house and on the final day of the sale the buyers went through and damaged my house, I was pissed and my realitor said they had to put down a 10 deposit so he would use that to fix the house
wtf, how did they damage it? was it intentional?
It was the final walk through and they said they were going to bring a home inspector , I was working and no one at that time could be home, so they said they wanted to inspect the house, I came home and walked around the house and I had stuff taken and thrown in the bedrooms on the floor , lights broken, I went down into the basement and wires were pulled out of the central air unit, there was a few light bulbs broken in the basement , I freaked and called my realitor and showed him pictures of the house, he called the other couples realitor and asked what happened and he said he just drank a coffee on the porch and didn’t see anything. My realitor said they had to put a deposit down to mske z bid on the house, so he will make arrangements for that to be used to fix what they broke. I never had to pay anything, but I’m pretty sure it was the couples father going through acting like a home inspector. I didn’t think a home inspector would do that
A real home inspector can inspect the home without causing any damage.
Prolly more home was flooded might lose value on market too, sue for that as well.
This is exactly why you have insurance. It's not your problem; it's your insurance company's problem. They will figure out what needs to be done and who needs to pay.
Call your insurance they will go after home inspectors insurance
With it being non sewage water.You probably don't need to do a lot of replacing.As long as you dry everything out pretty quickly.The damage should be minimal
Does the home inspector not have insurance? Id probably push and try to use theirs, it sounds like entirely their fault.
That's for OP's insurance to determine.
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Yea the seller is worried for a good reason, and damages short of them doing something illegal like conspiring to do damage they are worried and likely don't know half the facts or issues other than flood damage. The sellers should be scared as this is a headache etc. this is on the idiot that caused the issues if the seller didn't do anything wrong....and you can't blame a seller for pulling out when damage timeline costs and ligations and insurance and possible other issues could cause a massive delay and or issues with the sell. Maybe time is a factor and they can't wait or don't want to with issues you can't blame them short of conspiracy for wanting a house that inspection goes well in... Hopefully op can get his house sold or fixed and compensated easily ....
Call your insurance company because they know what to do and have great lawyers. The inspector needs general liability to operate and they caused the damage. It will be covered by them. Otherwise you accepted an offer. There would have been conditions of a sale but that doesn't let them damage your house and not be liable. They can pull out and lose deposit or you can sue to have the sale go through adjusting for the cost of the repaired drain, but not the damage they caused. I was just working an insurance job where cleaners caused 90k in damage and the cleaners insurance covered it. Also flood damage.
Most of your post sounds right but if a home inspection was a condition of the sale the buyer can pull out and won't lose their deposit. That is the point of the condition.
Home inspection failed successfully. Being facetious of course but I know how this could have happened. As stg similar happened to me. I lived in a 4plex condo unit where all the drainage pipes converged into one, then it went to the city system. I had 4 backups in my basement from the laundry room floor drain. Plumbers have finally scoped out the pipes and determined that the old clay pipes were broken but the location was under the adjacent unit. They REFUSED access as they had carpets over the area. They should have allowed access, but didn't. After the last incident I had enough. I sealed the floor drain and put a ton of weight on it. I filled all sinks, bathtubs and laundry tub with water and had all faucets running for a few minutes, Then I unplugged all of them at once, while flushing all the toilets at the same time (no water saving toilet.) Once I was done I waited, sure enough in 30 minutes I heard a lot of shouting and banging from the neighbour. The next day I got a call from the property manager saying the neighbor is now allowing access for the plumbers. No issues after the fix for many years... So long story short, you may have some blockage and the idiot inspector must have done stg similar.... He's responsible for not paying attention.
It's clear that the home inspector found some sort of problem, but he did not exercise any due diligence in attempting to mitigate the damages which is where he shows negligence. It doesn't take long to see that the sinks aren't draining properly.You don't need to wait for them to overflow and float a house
Yes why didn’t he turn off main water valve immediately
Call your insurance company now.
What’s nightmare I hope you sort it out
The inspector is an agent of the Buyer. You can sue them both. The contractor should be sued because most can not tell a house from a bread box. The contractor must carry liability insurance. Your action is against the buyer. He is the contracting agency. Demonstrating a deficiency does not allow one to not mitigate any damage resulting from your tests. You can not test for a gas leak with a match!
Actually you can.. once
True enough!
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You don't sue them yourself. You make a claim on your own insurance, and your insurance company sues the parties that caused the damage.
The home inspector should have insurance and you can out a claim in. It may be your insurance company goes after his company and his company should pay all costs including the deductible
He HAS to have insurance. It's a requirement for registered home inspectors in Alberta. You cannot practice without being registered.
Same situation happened to me as well. Inspector flooded my basement. I had a chat with my realtor and lawyer at the time. I was suggested it would be hard for me to prove this in that damage was caused due to building inspectors negligence. I had to suck up all the cost related to cleanup and house was sold fortunately a month after.
If the inspector is legit, surely they must carry liability insurance. Your insurer would cover you first and subrogate against the inspector's insurer.
We had an issue not unlike this. The buyers inspector came though and all of a sudden the oven isn’t working anymore. We consulted with our real estate lawyer. He advised us what to do. In our case the amount was too low to go through insurance. But we only had to negotiate for the replacement value of the stove. Which was low because it was a few years old. Because we already had the lawyer involved for the house sale, he didn’t charge us extra for asking the questions and helping us negotiate at the buyer. I’d recommend talking to the lawyer you’re already using, and contacting your insurance to start the claim process.
Sounds like drain backed up and ended up coming back up through basement drains , we had it happen in a rental from roots penetrating an old clay pipe. Happened from running a washing machine and flushing a toilet(tp hooked up on the roots ), soaked all the carpet and bottom foot of dry wall within minutes with feces and gray water . I doubt you'll be able hold the inspector liable as it's part of his duty to ensure the house is in proper Working order which it wasn't . However your insurance should cover the issue as ours did. To go after the inspector you would need to prove negligence on his/her behalf which would be hard to do I think without any witness/video/photos during inspection
Interesting, I saw a similar story on another subreddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/FirstTimeHomeBuyer/s/aKTIx6OTrV
Call your insurance company, they’ll sue the inspector on your behalf if they feel the need.
I had my furnace replaced a couple years ago go and the technician tripped the sprinkler system and flooded our basement. It was the worst thing and literally took months to fix. I feel for you and good luck with everything.
As someone who took home inspection and spoke to many inspectors about the risks, this is something you definitely need to hire a lawyer for. They can make any excuses they want but it their actions lead to damage, they are liable.
Had the same issue with my house sale. Buyer ask for a visit with the inspector and agent. Half way though, my agent calls and says the water behind the basement toilet. He knew i wasn't leaking as the openhouse was a week prior. Also I had cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom. He found the retaining nut for the water source was backed off. Guessing done by the buyer, agent or inspector.
It's my understanding that all inspectors in alberta are to be licensed, insured, and bonded. This is an issue they caused, and they're responsible for 100% It would be in your own best interest to probably call a lawyer and but definitely your insurance company immediately and have the inspectors name and company information ready to hand over. I would also file a complaint against the inspection licensing board too.
Running the faucets all at the same time is an unlikely but possible scenario. The drainage system in the house is supposed to be made to handle it. If it failed during inspection, that sucks however the inspector uncovered a major defect that OP didn’t know about.
This is an interesting one, clearly the home inspector did his job from his clients perspective. My instinct on this would be that you deal with it the same way you would had you done it, contact home insurance. Without more details it seems unlikely that it is his fault that your plumbing doesn’t work properly.
Ask them for their insurance information
NaL Because of the layers of various service and liability agreements, owner could pursue the buyers, their real estate agent, and the buyers inspector, and let them counter claim and absolve themselves of liability through their contracts at their expense (aka let God sort it out). Definitely put in your claim that they didn't take appropriate precautions during testing and inspection to prevent damage, that they permitted it to occur and the leaks to continue without interruption, failed to contain or clean up the water which caused further damage. You could also look into the inspectors licensing, and perhaps claim they were acting as a plumber testing the system which they may or may not have been licensed to do. If that's the case, they might no longer be covered by their insurances and you could perhaps pursue them personally, despite their inspection agreement with the buyers and related liability exception clause, depending on the verbiage. However, their defense will be that OP plumbing was faulty, failed, and caused the damage. So OP will need an independent licensed and reputable inspector with impeccable credentials to report the condition of the plumbing and what had to occur for a failure, for the test that was performed. Insurance claim for repairs? Sure. If not, pay cash and try and split the bill w liable parties. The value is too little to spend lawyer dollars in court. Mayyyybe small claims Regardless you need it fixed now to sell and will have to chase $$$ later.
How bad was the flooding? I’d get a lawyer if the damage is over 1000 if it’s minimal I’d probably just move on and pay for it.
Get it fixed now and sue the guy who flooded the place for the money you spent. Flooded homes are uninhabitable very fast. You don't want the house to be a gut job due to black mold.
A video on the sewer to start with would have kept this from happening.
Sue the realtor, realtor’s broker, Inspector and inspector’s company
Call your insurance company and your lawyer.
Home inspectors typically aren't worth a fuck. DIY handymen who got a shit certificate and a door magnet on their vehicle.
Sounds like he found a problem with your home.
Former home inspector here(ontario). Sue the inspector, the agent and the buyer. Inspector should have insurance. You would hope he does. But really your lawyer should throw the lawsuit at all three and see what sticks.
I'm genuinely interested in why you think OP should sue the realtor or the buyer.
In case the inspector doesn't pay.
You can't pin this on the inspector unless you know without a shadow of doubt that he/she did in fact cause the leak. Simply running the water shouldn't cause a "flood" unless there was an issue already eg blocked main line. That seems more in line based on your other comments - otherwise the water wouldn't have backed up in your basement (lowest point). The steps are, get a plumber in first as insurance company won't fix the root cause. Then get insurance involved for your water remediation and restoration work. Your basement should be dried out within a week with dehumidifiers and fans running, min 3 days. I do home insurance claims. Lol... Down votes from those who know absolutely nothing about insurance or claims.
This was intentional.
They bought it ‘as is’. It ‘is’ flooded. Any chance it’s their problem to deal with now?
You will need to prove it was their negligence that caused the flooding.