diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 9124c2e8ff..708235e32a 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ Inspired from [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/)
 - Added support for the `search_relevance` namespace ([#1748](https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-java/pull/1748))
 - Fix formatting of the main method to run for various samples ([#1749](https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-java/pull/1749))
 - Bump `com.github.jk1.dependency-license-report` from 2.9 to 3.0.1 ([#1779](https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-java/pull/1779), [#1781](https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-java/pull/1781))
+- Fix NPE when null ObjectBuilder is accessed ([#1717](https://github.com/opensearch-project/opensearch-java/issues/1717))
 
 ## [Unreleased 3.x]
 ### Added
diff --git a/java-client/src/main/java/org/opensearch/client/json/ObjectBuilderDeserializer.java b/java-client/src/main/java/org/opensearch/client/json/ObjectBuilderDeserializer.java
index 4943e83eb3..9b13124751 100644
--- a/java-client/src/main/java/org/opensearch/client/json/ObjectBuilderDeserializer.java
+++ b/java-client/src/main/java/org/opensearch/client/json/ObjectBuilderDeserializer.java
@@ -89,12 +89,12 @@ protected JsonpDeserializer<B> unwrap() {
     @Override
     public T deserialize(JsonParser parser, JsonpMapper mapper) {
         ObjectBuilder<T> builder = builderDeserializer.deserialize(parser, mapper);
-        return builder.build();
+        return builder != null ? builder.build() : null;
     }
 
     @Override
     public T deserialize(JsonParser parser, JsonpMapper mapper, JsonParser.Event event) {
         ObjectBuilder<T> builder = builderDeserializer.deserialize(parser, mapper, event);
-        return builder.build();
+        return builder != null ? builder.build() : null;
     }
 }