lawn

If you do that and then lay turf, you could kill the turf - so be careful with what you use if you do decide to do it! I wouldn't touch chemicals, I would do it the hard way and dig them out and then rake and tread the surface ready to lay the turf.

May I ask what type of soil you have? if all weeds is it because soil is compacted heavy clay? Is there a lot of moss in your existing lawn?

A friend has this problem in her small front garden and has asked me (!) to re lay her lawn.It really is so badly drained full of weeds and moss.My initially reaction was to
advise her to consider an alternative but adamant she wants a lawn.

Having removed turf I intend to lay shingle then a weed suppress membrane then topsoil as grass only requires a few inches of soil to grow in.The theory being that this should allow excess water to drain away as membrane permeable.

The top soil is not bad, and we have no moss, as we are in a very chalky area, the grass has been very neglected as we moved here quite recently.
We were hoping for a quick solution

I really don't think there is a quick solution - sorry to disappoint you!

That's the wrong answer !!!!!