That was part of communism, at least in Romania. My grandpa was telling me stories about how he lived in an apartment with 2 other families. The state would take and redistribute homes so they took this building from some rich family and then divided in to apartments and then put several families in each apartment. There was no option but to comply, you had to live there. That was the communist way, it did not matter if the previous owners worked hard for that house or if it was in their family for generations, they just took anything they wanted.

And as you expect the ruling party members just took the previously rich peoples houses on an one on one bases.