Why wouldn't you just make the it an abstract base model without any fields? If that's not what you want though you should be able to get that behavior using mu

Why wouldn't you just make the it an abstract base model without any fields? If that's not what you want though you should be able to get that behavior using multiple inheritance: class AlwaysUpdate(object): def save(self, *args, **kwargs): if self.pk: kwargs['force_update'] = True kwargs['force_insert'] = False else: kwargs['force_insert'] = True kwargs['force_update'] = False return super(AlwaysUpdate, self).save(*args, **kwargs) class MyModel(AlwaysUpdate, models.Model): pass # model def here