diff --git a/src/utils/common.py b/src/utils/common.py
index a676b66..2f77cba 100644
--- a/src/utils/common.py
+++ b/src/utils/common.py
@@ -101,10 +101,10 @@ def _init_adapter(
         logger.info("Fine-tuning method: LoRA")
         lastest_checkpoint = None
 
-        assert os.path.exists(os.path.join(model_args.checkpoint_dir[0], CONFIG_NAME)), \
-            "The given checkpoint is not a LoRA checkpoint, please specify `--finetuning_type full/freeze` instead."
-
         if model_args.checkpoint_dir is not None:
+            assert os.path.exists(os.path.join(model_args.checkpoint_dir[0], CONFIG_NAME)), \
+                "The given checkpoint is not a LoRA checkpoint, please specify `--finetuning_type full/freeze` instead."
+
             if (is_trainable and model_args.resume_lora_training) or (not is_mergeable): # continually train on the lora weights
                 checkpoints_to_merge, lastest_checkpoint = model_args.checkpoint_dir[:-1], model_args.checkpoint_dir[-1]
             else: