flaky question of the day

[rootsnall]

I'm just making sure all my paperwork is filed away for a 4 year long contract I just finished. It started as a 3 monther with an 'Agency Contract for Services' and an accompanying 'Contract Confirmation Note'. All subsequent renewals have been via email saying 'are you happy to extend for 3 months, all T & Cs remain unchanged' to which I just replied 'YES'. 4 years ago I emailed a copy of the 'Agency Contract for Services' signed on behalf of my Ltd and I have that at hand now. But I never received back a copy with the Agency signature on it, and I also don't think I ever received back a 'Contract Confirmation Note' for the initial contract. I have a 'Contract Confirmation Note' for one of my renewals and it's probably not a great piece of paper as it names me rather than the Ltd, a rate and the dates of the renewal.

So my question is would you bother chasing that original signed copy ? I am thinking if I ever have to produce the paperwork for an investigation the fact I was working without a signed contract could be a good thing !?!?!?! The contract is I think pretty good in terms of IR35, I never had it reviewed but it looked OK with Substitution etc in there. The agency were/are slack so probably wouldn't be able to produce it anyway and a good chance it was never signed.

[ladymuck]

Bit late for retrospective box ticking.

But I wouldn't have an issue with the 'continue on the same terms' approach. You have a contract and each extension was for a defined period as stated in the emails (I hope the extension period was stated!) so that ought to be ok.

IANAL