diff --git a/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py b/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
index 15cf36cba..f2d38cc31 100644
--- a/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
+++ b/sentence_transformers/SentenceTransformer.py
@@ -1554,7 +1554,7 @@ def _load_module_class_from_ref(
         if class_ref.startswith("sentence_transformers."):
             return import_from_string(class_ref)
 
-        if trust_remote_code:
+        if trust_remote_code or os.path.exists(model_name_or_path):
             code_revision = model_kwargs.pop("code_revision", None) if model_kwargs else None
             try:
                 return get_class_from_dynamic_module(