I have written a custom validator that is scoped to the whole class so that I can access multiple properties and do the validation. I had implemented this based on the following article http://www.jroller.com/page/jgilbert01?entry=extending_the_hibernate_vali... As you see below the IdTypeValidator is my custom validator and I am passing in the Product object as value. @Entity @Table(name = "PRODUCTS") @IdTypeValidator(value=Product.class) public class Product{ ... } The validator does get invoked and when the validation fails how to display this error message. As this validator is annotated to the whole class I cannot tie it to any particular field on the JSF page. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4059550#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...