Hi,

I have a have afew questions about the Permanent Residence and naturalisation process for my husband. My husband is South African and I am German. We have been living in the UK since September 2007. My husband is currently on a 5 year EEA family permit which will expire in July this year. He can apply for his British passport from September this year, so it seems as if it doesn't make sense to apply for his EEA4 for the sake of 3 months (seeing that it can take up to 6 months for it to be issued). However, I am not sure if this would cause issues with his employer or his passport application later this year. Therefore, I would be very grateful if anyone could help me answering the following questions:

a) My husband automatically obtained his PR in September last year. Will he need to apply for the stamp in the passport before he can apply for his passport?

b) Without the EEA4 stamp in his passport, would he

- be legally employed?

- be allowed to leave the country and (more importantly) be allowed back in?

- be able to get a Schengen visa to travel to Germany?

c) If we apply for his passport in September, would he be allowed out an in of the UK while we wait for the passport?

d) If he is allowed to leave the country while we wait for the passport, would he be able to get tourist visas for other countries(without having the EEA4 stamp)?

Many thanks for your help!