In 2005 when I bought a Baleno, all documentation was proper and the transaction was buttery smooth. I had a DL, Voter Id and Flat ownership papers all with the right address. That was in Bangalore.
Last year I moved to a small village in Udupi district due to the relocation of the company. That started the long saga of getting a proper proof of address (poA), and it still continues.
My phone is in company name, so I can't use that for poA. The power bill refers to khata number, it has no usable address. Same goes for house ownership document. So I got myself a ration card, and that was a whopper. It had a locality name from the nearby town and the name of another village. In other words, I live in village A, but the ration card has a locality from town B and has the name of Village C.
I tried to get the address fixed on the ration card. But these people don't live in our world, they don't follow postal addresses, it is apparently correct according to electoral village.
The HDFC Bank account is the only thing that has the proper address recognised by the post office. Rest are all imaginary, only the village accountant armed with his maps can understand these addresses.
Therefore, we couldn't change the addresses on our DL, passport or the RC books. The bank account address can't be used for poA until the address is stable for 1 year.
After a year, my wife tried to get her address changed using the bank letter for poA. But we also had to submit copy of ration card as secondary proof. We had begged and implored them to use the correct address. Still, when the DL address change was made, the learned RTO folks decided to believe the government issued address over the private Bank poA. Now my wife's DL also has the imaginary address that points to a black hole. After that experience, I decided to keep Bangalore DL intact. I may not have the right address, but at least it is a real address pointing to the Bangalore flat I own. In other words, I still couldn't change my address on DL/RC/Passport after more than a year. I still can't prove I live here.
Recently I sold the Baleno and applied to HDFC bank for foreclosing my loan. I was given a closing form and that had two mistakes in it. My Bangalore flat is in C tower, but the loan paper had it as E tower, which doesn't exist. It also had the wrong road in the address. I had given my address correctly, but the HDFC loan DSA (Direct Selling Agent) was an illiterate. With all the proper address proof, they had still recorded my information wrong.
HDFC loan department told me that if I pay off the loan, the loan papers will be returned to the address they have on record. That means they will lose it by sending to a non-existing address. So I applied for a change of address using the bank account address I had in the same bank. Guess what,
HDFC loan department doesn't trust HDFC bank. After 3 weeks of back and forth, now the local branch manager tells me that they can change the address only if the RC book address is changed. The RC book address can only be changed to the imaginary address on the ration card. In other words, I can only change the incorrect address on the loan document to another imaginary address.
1) Only Government issued address proof is accepted.
2) Government doesn't care if the address is incorrect or usable, and they refuse to make any changes. What is point of proof of address if the pedigree of the document is more important than the accuracy?