diff --git a/hw/core/qdev-properties.c b/hw/core/qdev-properties.c
index c10edeecf122f946fb79aa3d103558334caef4b0..3c20c8e4b24746fffee82f62810ccb119010b951 100644
--- a/hw/core/qdev-properties.c
+++ b/hw/core/qdev-properties.c
@@ -1085,9 +1085,14 @@ static void qdev_prop_set_globals_for_type(DeviceState *dev,
         prop->used = true;
         object_property_parse(OBJECT(dev), prop->value, prop->property, &err);
         if (err != NULL) {
-            assert(prop->user_provided);
-            error_reportf_err(err, "Warning: global %s.%s=%s ignored: ",
-                              prop->driver, prop->property, prop->value);
+            error_prepend(&err, "can't apply global %s.%s=%s: ",
+                          prop->driver, prop->property, prop->value);
+            if (prop->errp) {
+                error_propagate(prop->errp, err);
+            } else {
+                assert(prop->user_provided);
+                error_reportf_err(err, "Warning: ");
+            }
         }
     }
 }
diff --git a/include/hw/qdev-core.h b/include/hw/qdev-core.h
index 24aa0a794920a6b61f704dde99d59e4a81e83604..1d1f8612a9b8234fb6b764171195e024ff79dc1c 100644
--- a/include/hw/qdev-core.h
+++ b/include/hw/qdev-core.h
@@ -259,6 +259,9 @@ struct PropertyInfo {
  * @user_provided: Set to true if property comes from user-provided config
  * (command-line or config file).
  * @used: Set to true if property was used when initializing a device.
+ * @errp: Error destination, used like first argument of error_setg()
+ *        in case property setting fails later. If @errp is NULL, we
+ *        print warnings instead of ignoring errors silently.
  */
 typedef struct GlobalProperty {
     const char *driver;
@@ -266,6 +269,7 @@ typedef struct GlobalProperty {
     const char *value;
     bool user_provided;
     bool used;
+    Error **errp;
 } GlobalProperty;
 
 /*** Board API.  This should go away once we have a machine config file.  ***/