diff --git a/org.eclipse.wb.core.java/src/org/eclipse/wb/internal/core/model/property/editor/AbstractEnumPropertyEditor.java b/org.eclipse.wb.core.java/src/org/eclipse/wb/internal/core/model/property/editor/AbstractEnumPropertyEditor.java
index 24a35302b..54d8d02d6 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.wb.core.java/src/org/eclipse/wb/internal/core/model/property/editor/AbstractEnumPropertyEditor.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.wb.core.java/src/org/eclipse/wb/internal/core/model/property/editor/AbstractEnumPropertyEditor.java
@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ public String getText(Property property) throws Exception {
 			return element.toString();
 		}
 		// unknown value
-		return null;
+		return "";
 	}
 
 	@Override
diff --git a/org.eclipse.wb.tests/src/org/eclipse/wb/tests/designer/core/model/property/editor/EnumPropertyEditorTest.java b/org.eclipse.wb.tests/src/org/eclipse/wb/tests/designer/core/model/property/editor/EnumPropertyEditorTest.java
index 0fe6b7a58..31414d1f0 100644
--- a/org.eclipse.wb.tests/src/org/eclipse/wb/tests/designer/core/model/property/editor/EnumPropertyEditorTest.java
+++ b/org.eclipse.wb.tests/src/org/eclipse/wb/tests/designer/core/model/property/editor/EnumPropertyEditorTest.java
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 /*******************************************************************************
- * Copyright (c) 2011, 2024 Google, Inc. and others.
+ * Copyright (c) 2011, 2026 Google, Inc. and others.
  *
  * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
  * terms of the Eclipse Public License 2.0 which is available at
@@ -96,7 +96,7 @@ public void test_getText_noValue() throws Exception {
 		GenericProperty property = (GenericProperty) panel.getPropertyByTitle("foo");
 		EnumPropertyEditor editor = (EnumPropertyEditor) property.getEditor();
 		// text
-		assertNull(editor.getText(property));
+		assertEquals("", editor.getText(property));
 		assertNull(editor.getClipboardSource(property));
 	}