diff --git a/jip/maven.py b/jip/maven.py
index 14a1c5a..869bbb3 100644
--- a/jip/maven.py
+++ b/jip/maven.py
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #! /usr/bin/env jython
+# -
 # Copyright (C) 2011 Sun Ning<classicning@gmail.com>
 #
 # Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
@@ -110,6 +111,9 @@ def get_element_tree(self):
             ## we use this dirty method to remove namesapce attribute so that elementtree will use default empty namespace
             pom_string = re.sub(r"<project(.|\s)*?>", '<project>', self.pom_string, 1)
             parser = ElementTree.XMLParser(target=WhitespaceNormalizer())
+            # Remove BOM, or a Byte Order Mark.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark
+            first_tag_position = pom_string.encode().decode('utf-8').find('<')
+            pom_string = pom_string[first_tag_position:]
             parser.feed(pom_string.encode('utf-8'))
             self.eletree = parser.close()
         return self.eletree