diff --git a/src/tokenizers.js b/src/tokenizers.js
index 755a0c80a..dc0351bc4 100644
--- a/src/tokenizers.js
+++ b/src/tokenizers.js
@@ -3027,10 +3027,7 @@ export class PreTrainedTokenizer extends Callable {
             (this.chat_template && typeof this.chat_template === 'object') ||
             (this.chat_template === null && this.default_chat_template && typeof this.default_chat_template === 'object')
         ) {
-            const template_dict = this.chat_template ?? this.default_chat_template;
-            if (typeof template_dict !== 'object') {
-                throw Error(`Expected chat_template to be an object, but got ${typeof template_dict}`);
-            }
+            const template_dict = this.chat_template ?? this.default_chat_template; // Guaranteed to be a non-null object
 
             if (chat_template !== null && template_dict.hasOwnProperty(chat_template)) {
                 // The user can pass the name of a template to the chat template argument instead of an entire template