I used to assume that if a property had decreed water rights attached, you were buying security. Spent years thinking the priority date was the whole story. Then I purchased a small parcel with senior surface rights and discovered, two weeks before closing, that the previous owner had signed a subordination agreement with a municipal pipeline project years earlier. That decree was senior on paper but effectively junior in practice because of language nobody flagged during title review.
Standard title insurance won't catch this. Most rural real estate attorneys who don't specialize in water law won't catch it either. The clause was buried in a recorded agreement that never touched the deed directly.
Now I hire a water rights title specialist separately from my property title attorney on every transaction involving decreed rights. It costs more. It has also saved me twice.
If you're buying land with water rights in any prior appropriation state, ask specifically whether any subordination, exchange, or augmentation agreements are recorded against those decrees. Does your closing attorney even know what to look for?