Cost and hassle to turn a paved backyard into a garden?

[burritofan]

It's a how long is a piece of string question I suppose, but looking to buy a hovel in London and 90% of houses that meet our criteria and are in move-in condition have paved back yards rather than gardens. (But are often next door to places with lovely gardens so clearly it can be done/soil exists.)

Have gardened for years so happy to start from scratch with bare earth in terms of creating a lawn and flower borders, sapling trees; we're in it for the long term and I love, for example, watching my 30p almost-dead tiny lavender plug grow to behemoth proportions year on year; but cost and difficulty-wise, could anyone share their experiences of getting a (landscaping?) company to take out the paving and concrete and replace with sub and topsoil and maybe lay a path and small patio area?

Ballpark figures, horror stories, things to think about and watch out for. It would be a terrace so moving concrete out and soil in through the house, for instance. We basically don't want to buy somewhere and get stuck with a fully paved yard! Want a lawn for our daughter to step on bees/eat mud from, etc. Budget up to £12,000, would happily spend less (obviously) and have a company create the bare bones for us to fill with from-seed and from-garden-centre-discount-rack bargains.

Is this doable or should we hold out for a house that has, at the very least, bare earth at the back? There's one or two on our list.

Yes its doable, it will cost more than if you had better access.
Is there any other way to get into the garden?
I would approach a few local landscapers and ask for ball park figures (presuming you have the rough size of the garden?)

The landfill cost will be a part of it. If you can sell on the top layer to someone that will save you that money. We paid a builder to dig out foundations; it turned out he was good, and cheaper because he had another customer who needed soil. Took it straight from ours to their house..

Thats a good point One, perhaps you could offer the slabs on freecycle if you were to go ahead?
Also if you were to buy it, do get the garden done first so all the mess can be cleared before you start on any house renovations, also easier to do it in the late spring/early autumn when it is dry and not too cold/wet but not height of summer as hard to establish grass seed/turf then.

Magical news! Thank you all. Not got a specific place in mind yet, still looking but hindered by restricting our search to places with proper gardens so this is good news. Hadn't thought of Freecycling the flagstones etc, that's perfect.

You might not even need to put down any sub or top soil. I lifted up the crazy paving from my back garden and gave the ground a really good digging over with a fork. Then levelled it all and threw down grass seed and planted up a border down one side and it grew up pretty quickly and looks much better than before. Grass tends to be pretty forgiving of soil conditions, so long as it's not too stony and you keep it well watered until it establishes. I second the advice to offer up the paving online. I posted mine up on gumtree and freecycle and was surprised that a landscaper bit my hand off to take it away. I'd be tempted to offer the slabs for free to anyone who can collect and take away, that way someone else does the hard work for you.