diff --git a/code/nel/include/nel/gui/ctrl_base.h b/code/nel/include/nel/gui/ctrl_base.h
index 3b522e114..35148b5b0 100644
--- a/code/nel/include/nel/gui/ctrl_base.h
+++ b/code/nel/include/nel/gui/ctrl_base.h
@@ -151,8 +151,12 @@ namespace NLGUI
 		// called when keyboard capture has been lost
 		virtual void		onKeyboardCaptureLost() {}
 
+		// 'tooltip' property expects string to be ucstring or latin1 which is not possible from html page
+		int luaSetTooltipUtf8(CLuaState &ls);
+
 		REFLECT_EXPORT_START(CCtrlBase, CViewBase)
 			REFLECT_UCSTRING("tooltip", getDefaultContextHelp, setDefaultContextHelp);
+			REFLECT_LUA_METHOD("setTooltipUtf8", luaSetTooltipUtf8);
 		REFLECT_EXPORT_END
 
 		// special for mouse over : return true and fill the name of the cursor to display
diff --git a/code/nel/src/gui/ctrl_base.cpp b/code/nel/src/gui/ctrl_base.cpp
index 5c250a0da..475761e89 100644
--- a/code/nel/src/gui/ctrl_base.cpp
+++ b/code/nel/src/gui/ctrl_base.cpp
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@
 #include "libxml/globals.h"
 #include "nel/misc/debug.h"
 #include "nel/misc/xml_auto_ptr.h"
+#include "nel/gui/lua_ihm.h"
 #include "nel/gui/ctrl_base.h"
 #include "nel/gui/interface_group.h"
 #include "nel/gui/widget_manager.h"
@@ -556,5 +557,17 @@ namespace NLGUI
 			return itr2->second;
 	}
 
+	// ***************************************************************************
+	int CCtrlBase::luaSetTooltipUtf8(CLuaState &ls)
+	{
+		const char *funcName = "setTooltipUtf8";
+		CLuaIHM::checkArgCount(ls, funcName, 1);
+		CLuaIHM::checkArgType(ls, funcName, 1, LUA_TSTRING);
+		std::string tooltip = ls.toString(1);
+
+		setDefaultContextHelp(ucstring::makeFromUtf8(tooltip));
+
+		return 0;
+	}
 }
 
diff --git a/code/nel/src/gui/group_html.cpp b/code/nel/src/gui/group_html.cpp
index 42d237815..4df0b0ee5 100644
--- a/code/nel/src/gui/group_html.cpp
+++ b/code/nel/src/gui/group_html.cpp
@@ -3621,7 +3621,7 @@ namespace NLGUI
 			}
 			else
 			{
-				ctrlButton->setDefaultContextHelp(ucstring(tooltip));
+				ctrlButton->setDefaultContextHelp(ucstring::makeFromUtf8(tooltip));
 				//ctrlButton->setOnContextHelp(string(tooltip));
 			}