Homebuyer report - beware?

[AnnaK]

We found a nice house last year and in April 2010 had a £625 homebuyer report.
In January this year we found a leak in the roof and, in the opinion of the roofer, were informed that the roof had been like this for some considerable time.
We then contacted the survey company who admitted they had noted the problem during the survey but failed to transcribe their site notes correctly and after 7 weeks offered us the cost of the repairs bar £300. We accepted this as we have been living in chaos since January. They also failed on another large item.
The roofer have now found in excess of £3000 additional work that required doing which wouldn't have been visible to the surveyor.
However, the fact that the survey company failed to give the roof a condition rating of at least 2 (action required soon), they denied us the chance of negotiating a reduction in sale price or even asking the vendors to sort the problem out before completion. We do not have the extra £3000!
Any thoughts...?

Caveat emptor. If you wanted to know the true condition of the roof you should have a full structural survey. How old is the property ?

The property was built in 1969. I agree with caveat emptor and all that but the fact that there were two major flaws with the report that we did commision beggars belief, surely!

It was negligent of them to miss the first defect out of their report: they admitted that and compensated you.

It is not negligent to miss a defect that cannot be seen: they have no liability for your loss relating to that defect.

What was the other large item?

Survey reports are full of exemptions and warnings for defects not visible.

I fully appreciate they are not liable for invisible defects. The other item was the main lock on a patio door. It was non existant and the surveyor took pictures of the open door so it should have been obvious! It is going to cost quite a bit to get that sorted too!
Oh well, I am incredibly fortunate that I have very supportive parents and they are helping us financially. I just wanted to warn people, really. We paid to have a proper report and it let us down badly!

sorry I don't think a lock being missing or non functional comes under any survey anyway. We had a bolt one fitted when the original one broke for a relatively small cost, not pretty but did the job.