I’d try to avoid direct face-face contact with tenant. There’s nothing saying you need to do the inspection in front of him at the same time and need to refund his deposit right away…You can do the inspection after he vacates. You have time to refund any deposit back… You have 21 days to refund any deposits.
If he presses you to do it early, just say you don’t have time, you weren’t prepared since he/she canceled the lease early, and you’ll get to it. Nothing they can do.
Afterall, he did say he is in a hurry to vacate, unless he was lying. So let him vacate first. Get your place back first. Don’t sign off or release his deposit before he moves out and you have rekeyed the house….Again you have 21 days. Don’t be so damn nice to other people when their on their way out when they’re pricks. #1 priority is for you to get him to leave immediately, and make sure he can’t come back…Everything else, deal with later.

AFTER he moves out and you’ve changed the locks, Do you inspection, deduct cleaning expenses, repair expenses,etc… Deduct his deposit, document it very well, and send him a bill with copies of his receipts… Let him take you to court (he isn’t). He’s got better things to do.

The guy obviously is what in chinese we call (Ni Pi : I think. I suck at pinyin)… Meaning sore loser, person with loose ethics…You know the ridiculous kind of people in this country that does something wrong, cries foul, and then blames someone else for their problems. Next time, even if the person has to legitably cancel a lease early, make sure you negotiate so that you do the cancelation on your terms, not his….

And no, tenant does not have any rights to replace the carpet for you without your approvial. If he/she does so without your approval, not only can the the tenant be SOL, but you probably can deduct his deposit to replace the new carpet, if it’s not the same as the one that was there.. (What if he stuck in a really hideous purple carpet)….And you’re not going to give him your approval, otherwise he’ll find you the shittiest/preowned carpet that is availabe, and might even try the installing it himself. And then it will be YOU being SOL when you have to have it redone.

Tenants are sometimes idiotic…Hopefully, next time when you screen, you can leave the idiots to others…I had one tenant prospect that wanted me to rip out the carpets for wood flooring and take down glass mirrors. I literally said, “Are you joking? This is being rented as is… I have 8 other people that are interested as such”