diff --git a/lib/XML/Rabbit/Sugar.pm b/lib/XML/Rabbit/Sugar.pm
index 9c087de..59cab35 100644
--- a/lib/XML/Rabbit/Sugar.pm
+++ b/lib/XML/Rabbit/Sugar.pm
@@ -55,14 +55,15 @@ trait is automatically set to C<String>.
 =cut
 
 sub has_xpath_value {
-    my ($meta, $attr_name, $xpath_query, @moose_params) = @_;
+    my ($meta, $attr_name, $xpath_query, %moose_params) = @_;
     $meta->add_attribute($attr_name,
         is          => 'ro',
         isa         => 'Str',
         traits      => [qw( XPathValue String )],
         xpath_query => $xpath_query,
         default     => '',
-        @moose_params,
+        xml_default => $moose_params{default},
+        %moose_params,
     );
     return 1;
 }
diff --git a/lib/XML/Rabbit/Trait/XPathValue.pm b/lib/XML/Rabbit/Trait/XPathValue.pm
index 6b3802c..8b38476 100644
--- a/lib/XML/Rabbit/Trait/XPathValue.pm
+++ b/lib/XML/Rabbit/Trait/XPathValue.pm
@@ -3,11 +3,18 @@ use warnings;
 
 package XML::Rabbit::Trait::XPathValue;
 use Moose::Role;
+use Scalar::Util qw(blessed);
 
 with 'XML::Rabbit::Trait::XPath';
 
 # ABSTRACT: Single value xpath extractor trait
 
+has xml_default => (
+    is  => 'ro',
+    isa => 'Str',
+    predicate => 'has_xml_default',
+);
+
 =method _build_default
 
 Returns a coderef that is run to build the default value of the parent attribute. Read Only.
@@ -22,7 +29,9 @@ sub _build_default {
             $parent,
             $self->_resolve_xpath_query( $parent ),
         );
-        return blessed($node) ? $node->to_literal . "" : "";
+        return blessed($node)        ? $node->to_literal
+            : $self->has_xml_default ? $self->xml_default
+            :                          '';
     };
 }
 
diff --git a/t/21_xpath_default.t b/t/21_xpath_default.t
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b1f84a4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/21_xpath_default.t
@@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
+#!/usr/bin/perl
+
+use strict;
+use warnings;
+
+use Test::More;
+use Path::Class;
+use Scalar::Util qw(blessed);
+
+my @xmls = grep {/[.]xml$/} dir('t/data/auto')->children;
+
+for my $xml (@xmls) {
+    test_xml($xml);
+}
+
+done_testing;
+exit;
+
+sub test_xml {
+    my ($xml_file) = @_;
+    my $pm_file = $xml_file;
+    $pm_file =~ s/[.]xml$/.pm/xms;
+    my $tests_file = $xml_file;
+    $tests_file =~ s/[.]xml$/.has/xms;
+
+    my $module = require $pm_file;
+
+    my $object = $module->new( file => "$xml_file" );
+    isa_ok $object, $module;
+
+    my @tests = file($tests_file)->slurp;
+
+    for my $test (@tests) {
+        chomp $test;
+        local $TODO;
+        if ($test =~ s/^[#]//xms) {
+            $TODO = "Skipping test '$test' for $xml_file";
+        }
+
+        my ($search, $value) = split /\s+/, $test, 2;
+        is eval { search($object, $search) }, $value, "\$schema->$search == $value"
+            or note $@;
+    }
+}
+
+sub search {
+    my ($obj, $query) = @_;
+
+    my ($next, $rest) = split /->/, $query, 2;
+
+    my $next_obj
+        = blessed $obj && $obj->can($next) ? $obj->$next()
+        : ref $obj eq 'ARRAY'              ? $obj->[$next]
+        : ref $obj eq 'HASH'               ? $obj->{$next}
+        :                                    die "Can't get $query from $obj\n";
+
+    return $rest ? search($next_obj, $rest) : $next_obj;
+}
diff --git a/t/data/auto/complex_element.has b/t/data/auto/complex_element.has
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a21fd3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/data/auto/complex_element.has
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+element_form_default unqualified
diff --git a/t/data/auto/complex_element.pm b/t/data/auto/complex_element.pm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af7f5db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/data/auto/complex_element.pm
@@ -0,0 +1,13 @@
+package MyComplexElement;
+
+use XML::Rabbit::Root;
+
+add_xpath_namespace 'xsd' => 'http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema';
+
+has_xpath_value 'element_form_default' => './@elementFormDefault' => (
+    default => 'unqualified',
+);
+
+finalize_class;
+
+'MyComplexElement';
diff --git a/t/data/auto/complex_element.xml b/t/data/auto/complex_element.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e5a31cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/data/auto/complex_element.xml
@@ -0,0 +1,17 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+<xsd:schema
+    targetNamespace="http://element.example.com/"
+    xmlns:ec="http://element.example.com/"
+    xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
+    xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
+
+    <xsd:element name="test" type="ec:testType"/>
+
+    <xsd:complexType name="testType">
+        <xsd:sequence>
+            <xsd:element name="id"   type="xsd:int"    minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1"/>
+            <xsd:element name="name" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>
+        </xsd:sequence>
+    </xsd:complexType>
+
+</xsd:schema>