The final rush of applications to beat the deadline has now ended, but there are bound to be a few anxious faces out there wondering how things will turn out.
Because of the avalanche of late applications, it will take local authorities some time to sort out the order in which they are going to deal with the pile. Clearly, one might anticipate that the simple, straightforward conversions, as long as they are accurate and not defective in some way, will be handled first.
But that may not actually happen. Some councils could decide that they need to concentrate on the difficult applications for variations, so they can arrange hearings and gather the participants. All of this takes time and manpower.
This may mean that the straight conversion applications, which are unlikely to be opposed by the police except in a minuscule proportion of cases, are not dealt with first, but the weeks go by and the applicants still have not heard anything.
There is, of course, a time limit, built into the transition provisions but not appearing elsewhere in the Licensing Act. This says that if an application for a premises licence is not resolved within two months of receipt, then Part A will be treated as automatically granted, but Part B will be treated as automatically refused.
All applicants ought to have kept a proper record of their submissions. This can be either a postal delivery record, or a receipt from the council offices where the application was handed in. This gives a clear indication of how long you will have to wait.
Some council receipts are actually giving a date by which the application will have to be processed, so that you know what the longest time is before you have a decision.
Remember, too, that the time period is three months for personal licences, not two. So there may be an even longer wait before you are entitled to receive your council's decision.
The problem for all of us is: what actually happens at the end of the official periods? Actually, nothing, because that is the whole point. The reason you have not heard is because the council has not got round to dealing with it. If it had time to process the pile and write you a letter, it would have time to process the application.
So, for many people, around 6 October is when they should be anxiously scanning the pile of mail to see if a grant has come through. But what if it has not?
This point has not really been addressed in any detail. In terms of conversion, the Act says that if the authority 'fails to determine the application within that period, it shall be 'treated as granted by the authority.
So you are left in a kind of limbo. Nobody has produced a licence, but you are treated as having one. They have your money. You, as Anne Robinson would say, are left with nothing.
If you contact the council at that stage, it should be able to confirm whether it has actually made a decision but has not yet let you know, or whether it has not determined the application, in which case you can formally request that it issues a premises licence to you anyway. You have to hope that they get round to that by the second appointed day.
If, however, it is a variation which is not determined, then your only recourse is to join the queue going to the magistrates' courts and rely on them to provide the service that you found lacking at the town hall.