Transfer of Equity - PLEASE HELP

Will-I-Am

SO.... About 18 months ago I decided to buy a property with a friend as it seemed the best way for both of us to get on the property ladder. I put down almost the entire deposit for our house which was about 22,000 and we have been paying the mortgage equally since.
We are now in a situation where I am trying to buy him out of our mortgage and I am looking to replace him with my girlfiriend. I understand that a transfer of equity will need to be done to do this as well as my girlfriend being approved by the lender.
However, I'm unsure what steps I need to take with the transfer of equity and how we work out how much I need to pay my friend. Do I try and negotiate a price with him or is this something that gets sorted out by the solicitor/lender?
To make things more complicated I have also paid about £4000 in home improvements which have resulted in the value of the property being increased and I'm not sure whether he should be entitled to some of the increased value in the pay out of if he should just get back what he's paid off and what he originally put in?
If someone has been through a similar process or if anyone could give me a bit of a step by step guide to get this all sorted it would really be appreciated! Thanks!!

Pixie5740

Do you have a Deed of Trust? I'm guessing not otherwise you'd already know how to split the equity.

AnotherJoe

So did you seriously buy a house together with deciding this sort of stuff in advance?

If you didn't, the answer is, you could now come to almost any agreement under the sun.
Most certainly it wont be decided by the solicitor or the lender !

What do you think is fair?
What does your friend think is fair?

Thrugelmir

Will-I-Am wrote: »

To make things more complicated I have also paid about £4000 in home improvements which have resulted in the value of the property being increased

What was the money spent on? May have added little to no value to the property.