Anyway, registrars will invoice/warning their clients BEFORE the end of the term.
There is an implicit requirement in the RAA for two reminders: ------ http://www.icann.org/nsi/icann-raa-04nov99.htm#IIJ Registrar shall register SLDs to SLD holders only for fixed periods. At the conclusion of the registration period, failure by or on behalf of the SLD holder to pay a renewal fee within the time specified in a second notice or reminder shall, in the absence of extenuating circumstances, result in cancellation of the registration. ------ In classic ICANN drafting form, it is ambiguous whether these reminders include pre-expiration reminders. Although the sentence begins with "At the conclusion of the registration period" the grammatical structure of the sentence attaches this time point to "shall... result in cancellation of the registration" as the "time specified in a second notice" may have been the time specified in a notice sent previous to "At the conclusion of the registration period". The other long-cycle obligation with respect to any registration is to retain records relating to that registration for a period of at least three years. Again, the primary problem here is one of accounting. Any audit of a registrar pursuant to, say, a public stock offering is going to require that a registrar be able to specify with precision what are its contractual obligations and what are the time periods associated with those contractual obligations. One cannot say, "I have a bunch of one year contracts, with continuing record retention obligations for three years, and my obligations under those contracts terminate 'a few days before 45 days after they say they expire'".