Inform - advise

I wrote "Please be advised that..." to an official in India and he got offended, because, as another Indian explained, such phrase could be used when a senior clerk wrote to a lower rank clerk.

I also thought that "to be advised" was nearly the same as "to be informed", just less formal.

Please advise (inform?) how these two phrases are used in UK?

Маybe it's the "be" advised part. Maybe he thought you were threatening him. Sometimes when you threaten people you say things like "I advise you to keep your hands off my wife" and it is insinuated that if they don't you will fucking own them.