Answer by supercat for What exception to throw when a property setter is not allowed?

If the base class actually allows setting the name (as opposed to exposing an abstract setter which isn't guaranteed to work), derived classes should do so as well. If you want a hierarchy which includes some classes where the name can be set and some where it cannot, both kinds of class should inherit from an abstract ReadableXX class with a non-virtual read-write Name property that chains to abstract GetName and SetName methods. It should also provide some means of indicating whether SetName will be supported (e.g. a CanSetName method). A read-only variant of the class could define a "new" read-only Name property that would chain to GetName, and have its SetName override throw NotSupportedException. If the specification for the class says that SetName will only work if CanSetName returns true, then having SetName throw an exception in classes where CanSetName returns false would not violate the Liskov Substitution Principle.