diff --git a/pkg/reconciler/taskrun/resources/taskref.go b/pkg/reconciler/taskrun/resources/taskref.go
index 10d774eea94..3b00efd88f3 100644
--- a/pkg/reconciler/taskrun/resources/taskref.go
+++ b/pkg/reconciler/taskrun/resources/taskref.go
@@ -218,23 +218,28 @@ type LocalTaskRefResolver struct {
 // GetTask will resolve either a Task or ClusterTask from the local cluster using a versioned Tekton client. It will
 // return an error if it can't find an appropriate Task for any reason.
 func (l *LocalTaskRefResolver) GetTask(ctx context.Context, name string) (*v1beta1.Task, *v1beta1.RefSource, error) {
+	var ctErr error
 	if l.Kind == v1beta1.ClusterTaskKind {
-		task, err := l.Tektonclient.TektonV1beta1().ClusterTasks().Get(ctx, name, metav1.GetOptions{})
-		if err != nil {
-			return nil, nil, err
+		clusterTask, err := l.Tektonclient.TektonV1beta1().ClusterTasks().Get(ctx, name, metav1.GetOptions{})
+		if clusterTask != nil {
+			return convertClusterTaskToTask(*clusterTask), nil, nil
 		}
-		return convertClusterTaskToTask(*task), nil, nil
+		ctErr = err
 	}
-
 	// If we are going to resolve this reference locally, we need a namespace scope.
 	if l.Namespace == "" {
 		return nil, nil, fmt.Errorf("must specify namespace to resolve reference to task %s", name)
 	}
 	task, err := l.Tektonclient.TektonV1beta1().Tasks(l.Namespace).Get(ctx, name, metav1.GetOptions{})
-	if err != nil {
+	if task != nil {
+		return task, nil, nil
+	}
+
+	if l.Kind == v1beta1.NamespacedTaskKind && err != nil {
 		return nil, nil, err
 	}
-	return task, nil, nil
+
+	return nil, nil, ctErr
 }
 
 // IsGetTaskErrTransient returns true if an error returned by GetTask is retryable.