‘Thousands of ‘forced tenants’ who have been on Tallinn municipality’s list to get new accommodation from the city have by now been provided with a new flat,’ the Estonian capital’s deputy mayor, Eha Vork, told reporters.

‘The last person in line got the key to a new flat on Wednesday,’ Vork added.

Over the past decade, some 100,000 of Estonia’s 1.3 million residents have been hit by property restitution laws, among the most controversial reforms enacted since it regained independence in 1991 as the Soviet Union fell apart.

Estonia was seized by the Soviet Union during World War II. Tens of thousands of buildings and apartments were confiscated, and officers from the Red Army and the KGB, the Soviet-era secret service, moved in.

Many former owners were imprisoned, deported to Siberia or fled into exile — a fate shared by thousands of other Estonians.

But by 1991, many of the homes had new residents who had bought them legitimately during the Soviet era, because the communist regime allowed residential property deals.

Since the adoption of the restitution law in 1993, many such individuals found themselves living in homes handed back to former owners or their heirs.

To give them a buffer, such residents received the temporary legal right to stay put at below-market rents — hence the term ‘forced tenant’, because their landlords could not kick them out.

Estonian lawmakers eventually stretched the period of grace to 13 years starting from the date property was returned.

Anticipating the problem, Tallinn launched a programme in 2002 to build 35 low-cost housing blocks.