Short answer. No, not automatically. Article 793 says property acquired after a will is signed passes under that will only if the will expressly shows that was the testator's intention. Without that express language, a will speaks only to what the testator owned when it was signed, and newly bought property falls outside it.

What the law says

Property acquired after the making of a will shall only pass thereby, as if the testator had possessed it at the time of making the will, should it expressly appear by the will that such was his intention.

Civil Code, Article 793 — After-Acquired Property. Read the full provision →

The default is that a will only covers what existed then

A will is ordinarily understood as a statement about the estate the testator had in mind at the time of signing. Article 793 keeps to that default: property acquired after the making of a will passes under it only if the will says so expressly, treating the after-acquired property as if the testator had possessed it at the time of making the will. Silence on the point is not read as an oversight the law will fill in for the testator — it is read as meaning the will was never meant to reach that property.

What 'expressly' requires

The article's demand for express language is deliberate. General or sweeping phrases in a will — leaving all my property to someone, for instance — are common, but whether that kind of phrase counts as expressly covering property acquired later is exactly the sort of question that turns on the will's actual wording rather than the testator's likely wishes. The safer assumption for anyone drafting or relying on a will is that after-acquired property needs its own clear statement, not an inference from broad language elsewhere in the document. The article also does not require anything of a testator who never meant after-acquired property to pass under the will at all — silence works against inclusion, so a parent who deliberately left new purchases out of an old will is not overridden by this provision either.

What happens to property the will does not cover

When a will does not expressly reach property bought after it was signed, that property is not left in limbo — it simply falls outside the will's scope for succession purposes and is distributed under whatever rules apply to property the will does not dispose of. For a parent who has acquired new property since signing an old will, the practical fix is not to rely on that property being swept in automatically, but to have the will reviewed and, if necessary, updated to say so in clear terms.

Two neighbouring rules this one is often confused with

Two nearby provisions are often confused with this one. Article 794 provides that every devise or legacy covers all the interest the testator could dispose of in the property disposed of, unless it clearly appears from the will that he intended to convey a less interest. That rule enlarges what passes in a thing the will already identifies; it does not draw in a thing the will never mentioned, which is Article 793's subject. The other is the remedy rather than the problem. Under Article 825 a codicil is a supplement or addition to a will, made after it was executed and taken as part of it, by which a disposition in the original is explained, added to or altered. A parent who has bought property since signing an old will therefore need not start again — but the addition must be executed with the formalities the law demands of a will, not written into the old one's margin.

Related provisions

Note. Statute text quoted on this page is reproduced from the official enactment and is linked to the full provision. The explanation around it is general legal information from Vivas & Nobles Law Office, not legal advice. Whether it applies to your situation depends on facts only a lawyer reviewing them can assess.