diff --git a/mwparserfromhell/nodes/extras/attribute.py b/mwparserfromhell/nodes/extras/attribute.py
index cb50194..7d296dc 100644
--- a/mwparserfromhell/nodes/extras/attribute.py
+++ b/mwparserfromhell/nodes/extras/attribute.py
@@ -37,9 +37,9 @@ class Attribute(StringMixIn):
     """
 
     def __init__(self, name, value=None, quotes='"', pad_first=" ",
-                 pad_before_eq="", pad_after_eq=""):
+                 pad_before_eq="", pad_after_eq="", check_quotes=True):
         super(Attribute, self).__init__()
-        if not quotes and self._value_needs_quotes(value):
+        if check_quotes and not quotes and self._value_needs_quotes(value):
             raise ValueError("given value {0!r} requires quotes".format(value))
         self._name = name
         self._value = value
diff --git a/mwparserfromhell/parser/builder.py b/mwparserfromhell/parser/builder.py
index 99a54d1..decbe60 100644
--- a/mwparserfromhell/parser/builder.py
+++ b/mwparserfromhell/parser/builder.py
@@ -237,7 +237,8 @@ class Builder(object):
                 else:
                     name, value = self._pop(), None
                 return Attribute(name, value, quotes, start.pad_first,
-                                 start.pad_before_eq, start.pad_after_eq)
+                                 start.pad_before_eq, start.pad_after_eq,
+                                 check_quotes=False)
             else:
                 self._write(self._handle_token(token))
         raise ParserError("_handle_attribute() missed a close token")
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index d488650..68943ac 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ from setuptools import setup, find_packages, Extension
 from mwparserfromhell import __version__
 from mwparserfromhell.compat import py26, py3k
 
-with open("README.rst") as fp:
+with open("README.rst", **{'encoding':'utf-8'} if py3k else {}) as fp:
     long_docs = fp.read()
 
 tokenizer = Extension("mwparserfromhell.parser._tokenizer",