diff --git a/CoreFoundation/Preferences.subproj/CFXMLPreferencesDomain.c b/CoreFoundation/Preferences.subproj/CFXMLPreferencesDomain.c
index c7a87de559..1b98874c62 100644
--- a/CoreFoundation/Preferences.subproj/CFXMLPreferencesDomain.c
+++ b/CoreFoundation/Preferences.subproj/CFXMLPreferencesDomain.c
@@ -273,6 +273,10 @@ static Boolean __CFWriteBytesToFileWithAtomicity(CFURLRef url, const void *bytes
     close(fd);
     
     if (atomic) {
+        // If the file was renamed successfully and we wrote it as root we need to reset the owner & group as they were.
+        if (writingFileAsRoot) {
+            chown(auxPath, owner, group);
+        }
         // preserve the mode as passed in originally
         chmod(auxPath, mode);
                 
@@ -280,11 +284,6 @@ static Boolean __CFWriteBytesToFileWithAtomicity(CFURLRef url, const void *bytes
             unlink(auxPath);
             return false;
         }
-        
-        // If the file was renamed successfully and we wrote it as root we need to reset the owner & group as they were.
-        if (writingFileAsRoot) {
-            chown(cpath, owner, group);
-        }
     }
     return true;
 }