There was a study once that showed that, after 7 years, most of the surrounding population thought that a disaster that had happened couldn’t happen again (or something like that). I have found that to be true in areas I have lived.
I lived in an area that flooded from an overflowing river. It was the talk of the town for 3-4 years and people even soemewhat avoided buying there for that period of time. But by about the 7th year, no one talked about it, people were buying without giving it any thought, and new construction was even happening in the previously flooded area.
Think about what has happened here in San Diego with the 2003 Cedar Fire. People talked about it for 3-4 years, people planned their purchases based on fire danger, but it was getting rare to hear discussion about it when the 2007 Witch Creek Fire hit. I think we were on course for having the 03 Cedar Fire forgotten about by 2010 had it not been for the 2007 fire. Now, we’ll have to wait until about 2014 for people to return to that ‘it can’t happen here’ mentality.
This has been a long-winded way of saying, if ppl can forget about things that happen on that scale, they won’t be giving an accidental flooding in your folk’s home much thought. Especially if they keep the house longer than 7 years. 🙂
It sounds to me like the contractor is doing your parents right. If I were you, I’d pony up for a mold test when the work is complete (it is a new house, there should have been ZERO mold when you bought it, right?) as mold tests are becoming more popular and that is the one thing that could bite you come time to sell.
It’s your parents choice on whether they choose to disclose it when they sell, of course, but if I saw something that said “toilet overflowed and flooded the house 10 years ago so we completely reconstructed the flooring, etc and did a mold test” on the transaction paperwork, I doubt I would give it much weight and would probably see it as a bonus that the sellers were so up front.
