In this case, the registrar obviously screwed up. Still, if the domain had been renewed for an additional year already, the domain would not have been expired.
As sad as it may seem, you need to take other people's incompetence into account when you're dealing with business-critical things like domain names.
As sad as it may seem, you need to take other people's incompetence into account when you're dealing with business-critical things like domain names.