diff --git a/changelogs/fragments/warn_bad_local_fact.yml b/changelogs/fragments/warn_bad_local_fact.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..b2724fbd8f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelogs/fragments/warn_bad_local_fact.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+bugfixes:
+    - issue a warning when local fact is not correctly loaded, old behaviour just updated fact value with the error.
diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/facts/system/local.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/facts/system/local.py
index 20ba901cdb..fe33a3232f 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/facts/system/local.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/facts/system/local.py
@@ -60,6 +60,7 @@ class LocalFactCollector(BaseFactCollector):
                     fact = 'error loading fact - output of running %s was not utf-8' % fn
                     local[fact_base] = fact
                     local_facts['local'] = local
+                    module.warn(fact)
                     return local_facts
             else:
                 out = get_file_content(fn, default='')
@@ -75,6 +76,7 @@ class LocalFactCollector(BaseFactCollector):
                     cp.readfp(StringIO(out))
                 except configparser.Error:
                     fact = "error loading fact - please check content"
+                    module.warn(fact)
                 else:
                     fact = {}
                     for sect in cp.sections():