EEA2 - refusal due to insufficient evidence. Advice please!

[aphid]

Hi

Wondering if anyone can throw me some advice here. I submitted an EEA2 application for myself (not from an EEA member country) on 2 Feb, and just received it back 9 March after being rejected for insufficient evidence. The issue was with evidence of my self-employed husband's national insurance contributions - all his correspondence was in email form, so we sent them copies of the emails, reference numbers and all that. We also sent a wealth of other items - bank statements, invoices, his company's certificate of incorporation, his company's annual report, and on and on.

So, question one: What is the best form of evidence to send proving national insurance contributions paid? "Original documents" was bolded in the rejection letter, which is tricky given that the only originals my husband ever had were electronic.

Question two: My husband and I live and work in the UK. Until we got married I was here on a Tier 1 Post Study Work Visa. In the time between when I sent my EEA2 application and it was rejected, that PSWV has expired. Do I need to worry about this? Does my employer need to worry about this? Everything I've read says I can be here legally without a residence card, but it's fuzzy on working. Given I will have a new EEA2 application date of after my Tier 1 PSWV expired, can I continue working while awaiting their judgement?

Question Three: I bought my husband an international trip for his upcoming 30th birthday, at the beginning of May, which is going to be pretty tight between when I get my CoA and need the passports back. If I request our passports back before getting the CoA, is it true they return the entire application and you have to start again?

Thank you!!