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Expired means the cover ended. The next task waits for paper, even if the paper is one page.

The work is going well, the end date quietly passes, and the client keeps sending tasks as if nothing changed. It feels rude to stop over a date. It is also the exact moment payment arguments are born: work done after expiry can be argued over on rate, on scope, on payment terms, and on who owns it, because the document that answered those questions is no longer live. This page gives you the order that protects the relationship and the money: check what the old contract still covers, separate the finished work from the new requests, get a short written extension or bridge agreed before the next task starts, and run the new work on its own record so nobody later has to guess where the old job ended and the uncovered work began.

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Updated November 12, 2026. First published November 12, 2026. The records quoted below are real and public, read back from the live service on November 12, 2026.

Step 1. Read what actually expired, and what survives it

Contracts rarely die all at once. Most carry clauses that expressly survive the end date: payment for work already done, confidentiality, limits on using the clients material, and often the ownership terms for work already delivered. What expiry normally ends is the authorization and the machinery for new work: the agreed rate for future tasks, the scope, the notice terms, and the payment clock for anything you start now. Read the old document once with that split in mind and write two short lists for yourself: what is still settled (money owed, work accepted, terms that survive) and what is now open (any new task the client sends). That reading takes twenty minutes and it changes the conversation: you are not claiming the whole relationship ended, you are naming the specific gap the next task would fall into. If there is unpaid money from the live period, list it separately with its invoice and due date, because it does not need the new paper to be owed, and it should not be bundled into negotiating the extension.

Step 2. Do not start the next task on a verbal yes

The dangerous sentence in this situation is some version of we will sort the paperwork later, usually said warmly by someone who will not be the person disputing your invoice in three months. Work started uncovered tends to be priced by memory: the client remembers the old rate as a ceiling and the scope as flexible; you remember the opposite. The fix is small and fast, which is why there is no good reason to skip it. Send a short extension in writing before the next task: the old contracts terms continue for the new period, the rate and payment terms stated again in plain figures, the new end date or a rolling notice period, and one line naming the work it covers. A one page extension the client confirms by reply is enough for most freelance relationships; a fresh short agreement is cleaner if the scope or rate has changed since the original was written. What matters is not the documents length, it is that the agreement exists, is dated, and predates the work it covers. Paper written after the work is an argument; paper written before it is a fact.

Step 3. Draw the line between the finished job and the new work on the record

When this dispute does happen, it is usually a boundary dispute: which work belonged to the old contract, at the old rate, and which work came after. A per job record settles that boundary by date and decision, not by recollection. The record format is AER-1, published as an IETF Internet-Draft (draft-zambo-aer1-26), and each step carries a verifiable receipt: a receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved. The two public records below show the decision layer that closes one job before the next begins:

Accepted: the decision is on the record

Pending: checked, and still waiting on a decision

Read the accepted record as a closed chapter: 4 steps, all checked, decided by the client on 2026-10-16, release ok_to_release. Work under a contract should close like that, accepted and dated, before extension work starts on a new record under the new paper. The pending record shows the state to avoid carrying across an expiry: a job still pending, release on hold, is a job nobody has decided on yet, and letting the contract lapse underneath it leaves even that decision uncovered. Close or explicitly carry forward every open job in the extension, by name, so nothing sits between the two documents belonging to neither.

Step 4. If the client needs urgent work today, use a small paid bridge, not free uncovered work

Sometimes the need is real and immediate: something is broken, a deadline is today, and the extension will take their legal contact a week. The middle door is a bridge so small it can be agreed in one message: a named task or a named number of hours, a fixed price or the stated rate, payment terms for that piece alone, and an expiry of days, all confirmed in writing by the person who can approve payment, with a deposit paid before you start if the amount matters. A bridge is deliberately not the relationship; it covers the emergency and ends, and the full extension still has to follow before routine work resumes. What you should not offer is the open ended version: keep working at the old rate until the paperwork catches up. That version has no end, no price protection, and a growing pile of uncovered delivery that gets harder to paper fairly with every task, because each new delivery is also new leverage in a negotiation that has not happened yet.

Step 5. Put the next renewal on the calendar before this extension starts

This problem repeats because expiry is silent; no one is notified by a date sitting in a PDF. When the extension is agreed, do three small things the same day. Put the new end date on your calendar with a reminder thirty days before it. Write the renewal line into the extension itself: either it renews on written confirmation, or work pauses at expiry until an extension is agreed, stated now while everyone is friendly. And send the client one line naming the date, so the reminder lives on their side too. On the next job, build the check into delivery: when a jobs record closes, look at the contract date as part of closing it. Suppliers who never work uncovered are not stricter than you; they just meet the date while it is still a diary entry instead of a dispute.

What this page cannot settle

This page cannot tell you what your expired contract legally does in your jurisdiction; survival, automatic renewal, and work performed after expiry are treated differently in different places and in different contract wording, and this is general information, not legal advice. It also cannot make a client extend: if they will not put anything in writing, that refusal is itself the answer about how safe the new work is. A verifiable receipt proves the saved result was not changed since it was saved; it does not create contract cover or a right to payment. What the record settles is the boundary: which work was delivered and accepted, on which dates, under which job, so the paper argument starts from facts.

Frequently asked questions

My contract with a client expired but they want me to keep working. What should I do?

Pause the new work, kindly and briefly, until a short written extension is agreed. First read the old contract for what survives expiry, usually payment for completed work, confidentiality, and ownership of what was delivered, and list what is now open: the rate, scope, and payment terms for any new task. Close or explicitly carry forward any job still open, then send a one page extension before the next task starts: the old terms continued, the rate and payment terms restated in figures, the new end date or notice period, and the work it covers, confirmed by the client in writing. If they need urgent work first, agree a tiny paid bridge in one message, a named task, a price, and a few days of cover, and let the full extension follow. The rule underneath all of it: paper before work, because an agreement dated before the task is a fact and one dated after it is an argument.

Do the old terms automatically apply if I just keep working?

Sometimes a course of dealing is treated as continuing on the old terms, and sometimes it is not; it depends on the contracts wording and on the law where you work, and neither answer is one you should bet an invoice on. Even where the old terms do carry over in principle, proving that is a dispute you have to have, with the clients memory of the rate and scope competing against yours. A one page written extension costs an afternoon at most and replaces that entire argument with a dated document both sides confirmed. Treat any automatic continuation theory as a fallback you hope never to use, not as a working arrangement.

What if I already did a few days of work after the expiry date?

Then stop the pile growing and paper what exists. List the post expiry work precisely: tasks, dates, and what was delivered, and send it to the client as a short statement asking them to confirm the work, the rate it will be paid at, and the payment date, today. That confirmation, agreed now while the work is fresh and the relationship is warm, is worth more than any argument later about what the work was worth. Run the confirmation against the delivery record if the work has one, so the list is checkable rather than remembered. From the reply onward, no further tasks until the extension itself is in place; the already done days are a cleanup, not a precedent.

Can a simple email really extend a contract?

For most freelance work, a clear written exchange that names the terms, the rate, the period, and the work covered, and is confirmed by both sides, is a real agreement in ordinary business practice; the form matters less than the completeness and the date. Where it gets thin is authority: make sure the person confirming can bind the client on spending, not just the friendly contact who sends you tasks. If the amounts are large, the work is regulated, or the original contract has a clause requiring a formal amendment signed by named officers, follow that clause and get the formal version. This page is general information, not legal advice; a lawyer in your jurisdiction can tell you what your specific contract requires.

How does running each job on its own record help when a contract lapses?

It turns the boundary question into a dated list. When the work runs through Zambo, every job lands on its own record with a verifiable receipt for each step under AER-1, published as IETF Internet-Draft draft-zambo-aer1-26, the client accepts on that record, and the acceptance view shows status, decider, date, and release state, so work done under the old contract is visibly closed and dated, and extension work starts as its own record under the new paper. New users get 20 calls and 1 wrap-up free every day per agent, and picking up work in another AI is always free. For $0.99, run the first job under the extension on one record, with the extension confirmed in writing before the first step, so the new period opens with its boundary already provable: get the Day Pass. A Day Pass is unlimited for 24 hours, no subscription. Ongoing use is the Zambo Pass at $29 a month, $19 a month for $ZAMBO holders, or Lifetime at $250 one time.

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