I use: Python 2.6 and sqlalchemy 0.6.1 This is what I am trying to do: Code: from sqlalchemy.types import ( Integer, String, Boolean ) from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base Base = declarative_base() class SampleMeta(type): def __new__(cls, name, bases, attrs): attrs.update({ 'id': Column('Id', Integer, primary_key=True), 'name': Column('Name', String), 'description': Column('Description', String), 'is_active': Column('IsActive', Boolean) }) return super(SampleMeta, cls).__new__(cls, name, bases, attrs) class Sample(Base): __tablename__ = 'Sample' __table_args__ = {'useexisting': True} __metaclass__ = SampleMeta def __init__(self, id, name, description, is_active): self.id = id self.name = name self.description = description self.is_active = is_active def __repr__(self): return "<(%d, '%s', '%s', %r)>" % (self.id, self.name, self.description, self.isactive) And the error I am getting is this: Code: TypeError: Error when calling the metaclass bases metaclass conflict: the metaclass of a derived class must be a (non-strict) subclass of the metaclasses of all its bases Now, if I do the same thing above by using Code: class Sample(object) instead of Code: class Sample(Base) it works absolutely fine. I need to update the attributes of the class dynamically. So, I will be using dynamic attribute and column names. And I need the above piece code to work in order to be able to get there. Please help