diff --git a/cdisc_rules_engine/operations/get_xhtml_errors.py b/cdisc_rules_engine/operations/get_xhtml_errors.py
index b56ddeee8..e5c6c8e99 100644
--- a/cdisc_rules_engine/operations/get_xhtml_errors.py
+++ b/cdisc_rules_engine/operations/get_xhtml_errors.py
@@ -70,7 +70,6 @@ def _execute_operation(self):
         return dataset[target].apply(self._ensure_dataset_is_valid_xhtml)
 
     def _ensure_dataset_is_valid_xhtml(self, value: str) -> list[str]:
-        value: str = value.strip()
         if not value:
             return []
 
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_operations/test_get_xhtml_errors.py b/tests/unit/test_operations/test_get_xhtml_errors.py
index a61a9b4a3..cc4bdf0f8 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_operations/test_get_xhtml_errors.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_operations/test_get_xhtml_errors.py
@@ -65,6 +65,16 @@
             "invalid-namespace",
             SchemaNotFoundError,
         ),
+        (  # null value
+            "target",
+            PandasDataset.from_records(
+                [
+                    {"target": None},  # noqa: E501
+                ]
+            ),
+            "http://www.cdisc.org/ns/usdm/xhtml/v1.0",
+            [[]],
+        ),
     ],
 )
 def test_get_xhtml_errors(