See this test: https://github.com/zlepper/encoding-html/blob/master/decoder_test.go#L125-L153
It's probably not that common a usecase, but I have seen it happen, so it should be supported somehow.
Internally the tests fails here: https://github.com/zlepper/encoding-html/blob/master/decoder.go#L151 Because the underlying value for the pointer is nil.