Deciding between turf and grass seed

[gardeningwoes]

We’ve not long moved into a new build house and the back garden hasn’t been turfed.
The top soil is level with the path so this has made us think that laying turf on top would mean it would sit too high above the paving slabs?
We’d rather turf it as it’s not a large area, and seeding would take longer to look nice and tidy.
Any guidance would be much appreciated!

If you go down a few inches below that lovely topsoil the developers have put down, you'll probably find they've just smoothed it out over a load of rubble, bits of concrete, broken bricks, empty paint tins etc. So before doing anything, I'd check rather thoroughly what's actually underneath before doing anything else!

Seed every time. It may take longer to reach the height of turf, but it will be properly rooted and any gaps can be covered with extra seed and is way less expensive.
Which ever you choose, you must properly prepare the ground, getting rid of any rubble, roots etc. It must the levelled, or even better slope gradually away from the house.
There's plenty of U-tube videos covering how to do it, either way, so I suggest you spend a bit of time researching.

I used grass seed on my new build last year and it grew perfectly.

Dig any loose rubble, flatten it, cover with compost, seed and then compost again.

Having done both I prefer seed. It does take a while to get going but once it does looks nicer imo. Hard to get lines out of the turf rolls when you lay them, at least that was my experience. Now is the perfect time for either- just make sure you water regularly for the first few weeks ie ideally more than once a day.

Grass is a nightmare in a small garden though. Especially with children. Makes it pretty much unusable really, except a few days of the year. Tonnes of maintenance just to keep it passable. Are you absolutely set on a lawn?

And yes, whatever you do the ground is going to need serious preparation. Worth every second of effort and every penny of cost though

Thanks everyone that’s so helpful - I’m actually camp turf and DH is camp seed 😂
@OwlBasket the days of small kids are long gone thankfully so I’m trying to create something peaceful and beautiful, to sit and do nothing in! It’s not that large a garden and we’ll do a bit of deck at one end to break it up a bit.
We’ve had a dig at the end closest to the house and found plenty stones but no rubble thankfully, but plan to check the rest before either sowing seed or buying turf.

Really appreciate the advice 😊

Oh fantastic! Team seed here then

We turfed and now we seed the bald patches every year around this time. My DH has been out there this weekend and he’s laid a tarp down to keep the birds off of it. Worked well last year but definitely requires tlc.

I should add that the bald patches are due to a massive tree that limits the sunlight.