Credit memo not saving due to inactive site

Content

When creating a credit memo against an outstanding invoice (to clear full balance), error appears saying
"Unable To Credit Transaction Due to Error: The Bill-to customer site you selected is invalid (AR-856366)".

Found document ID 2231442.1 which suggests creating manual credit memo or re-activate the relevant site.
Neither of these are suitable as manual credit you have to make sure you have all the original data from 
invoice (REV and REC codes, VAT code, amount etc).
Re-activating the site makes the CM go to the wrong address (unless you can incomplete and change address before printing)
and you also run the risk of creating new invoices to wrong address if you forget to inactivate the site afterwards.