How long does he have to file a report or to take us to court after the flooding at home incident happened?

Back in June (1st week of June), a pipe from our fridge broke (any time after 3am. I know that because we went to bed at 3am). When we woke up at 7am, the entire area (that includes laundry room, kitchen, family room and part of the dining area) was flooded. We live in a townhouse and the water reached the next door neighbor. He has laminated floors and he says that the flood damaged his floors (well parts of it). Neither he or us have insurance. After the incident, he told us that we need to pay him for the damage. We spoke to several people who are experts in this type of flooring and they all told us that damages usually started to appear within a couple of days not hours; and the neighbor just told us immediately that his floors were damaged. My husband went over his house to inspect the floors and noticed that the areas that the water did not reach looked pretty much the same as the areas where there was some water (we don't even know how much water he had in there because he did not let us in at that moment to see it and he did not even took pics of the water in his house, he just took pics of some towels on the floor that I guess he used for drying the floors). This seems weird to us and we do not want to pay for something we did not do. We understand that accidents happen and we will pay for his floor, but we just want to be sure first. How does the law work here? Can he take us to court and sue us? What are our rights here?