diff --git a/apache-rat-plugin/src/main/java/org/apache/rat/mp/AbstractRatMojo.java b/apache-rat-plugin/src/main/java/org/apache/rat/mp/AbstractRatMojo.java
index ab2129c97..d9488a52b 100644
--- a/apache-rat-plugin/src/main/java/org/apache/rat/mp/AbstractRatMojo.java
+++ b/apache-rat-plugin/src/main/java/org/apache/rat/mp/AbstractRatMojo.java
@@ -504,7 +504,7 @@ protected ReportConfiguration getConfiguration() throws MojoExecutionException {
                     }
                 }
                 if (families != null || getDeprecatedConfigs().findAny().isPresent()) {
-                    if (log.isEnabled(Log.Level.DEBUG)) {
+                    if (log.isEnabled(Log.Level.DEBUG) && families != null) {
                         log.debug(format("%s license families loaded from pom", families.length));
                     }
                     Consumer<ILicenseFamily> logger = super.getLog().isDebugEnabled() ? l -> log.debug(format("Family: %s", l))
diff --git a/src/changes/changes.xml b/src/changes/changes.xml
index bd6a75f3c..b1f1a20f7 100644
--- a/src/changes/changes.xml
+++ b/src/changes/changes.xml
@@ -68,6 +68,9 @@ in order to be properly linked in site reports.
     </release>
     -->
     <release version="1.0.0" date="xxxx-yy-zz" description="Current SNAPSHOT - release to be done">
+      <action issue="RAT-531" type="fix" dev="pottlinger" due-to="huangxiaoping">
+        Fix NPE that license families is null if licenses are defined manually, reported by huangxiaoping from Hudi.
+      </action>
       <action issue="RAT-293" type="add" dev="pottlinger">
         Add integration of RAT into SonarCloud analysis now that JDK8 is dropped and generate a test coverage report with JaCoCo.
       </action>