Government has passed a legislation that each and every developer has to allocate a certain percentage (%) of their total development to BUMI only purchasers and they can only open for public sale after a certain condition has been met (eg. make reasonable efforts to promote the sale of such units and still unable to secure BUMI purchasers).

After proving to the relevant department that all endeavors to secure BUMI purchasers have been exhausted then an application needed to be submitted to obtain approval that such units are now free from the "conditions".

If the developer sells these BUMI units prior to the compliance of these conditions then a penalty will be levied on the developer which shouldn't be a big issue now but will be a dispute during the perfection of transfer because the land authority will not register the purchasers' interest until such penalty has been paid. Developers are known to drag these payments causing purchasers not being able to register themselves.

Freehold/Leasehold is a condition determined by the local land authority, BUMI allocation is determined by the Parliament. 2 different authorities and there is no saying who triumphs who eh?

Technically, your SA isn't lying but he isn't telling you the truth either. The developer assumed that by the time of the 80% completion, the "free BUMI lots" conditions would have been complied but hard to say.

Land laws regulating lands in the West and East of Malaysia is different, National Land Code for the earlier and Land Ordinance for the latter. There is a difference both.