Simon Winchcombe

Please can you help? We purchased our home in 2006 for £485000, but in 2012, we went abroad as missionaries; we were still ordinarily resident and paid taxes in the UK. We rented our home for this time. In 2016 we moved back to the UK, but we had to move as my wife got a job in another city. We had to rent there for a year but then purchased another house. We sold this two years later as my wife (and I) were asked to move into a tied apartment as part of her job. We have always intended to keep our original house as this was our home, but now we need to sell it. I am hoping that for the 18 years, we have had the house, we can claim it as our main residence for 16 years (as the other place was our main home for two years). Can you advise us please?